Thick as Thieves

[Seventeen to Twenty-Four]

by Lori McDonald & Valerie Jones








[Part Seventeen] [Part Eighteen] [Part Nineteen] [Part Twenty] [Part Twenty One] [Part Twenty Two] [Part Twenty Three] [Part Twenty Four]





Part Seventeen
[Valerie Jones]


Bobby hummed to himself as he watched the saleslady wrap up the yellow dress. It was obvious that she knew it was supposed to be a present. She hadn't even asked Bobby before wrapping the garment in decorative gold colored tissue and putting it in a similarly styled gift bag. She fussed with the tissue that stuck out the top of the bag for a moment, and then, seemingly satisfied, pushed the package toward Bobby. With the other hand, she held out the receipt.


Bobby took both and thanked her. He still felt a little strange, knowing that he'd used money Michael had given him-money that ultimately came from the diamonds they'd stolen.


Bobby pushed the thought aside. So what? He'd gone with Michael to protect Remy, not because he wanted to steal. And if he was reaping a little benefit from that, where was the harm? Besides that, the diamonds were insured. The people they'd stolen them from would be reimbursed for the full value.


But as he left the little shop, a voice deep inside kept telling him that he'd done something he was always going to regret.





Hesitantly, Diedre took the gift bag from his hand. "Bobby, you shouldn't. . . " But despite her protest, her eyes glowed and Bobby found himself flushing.


"Go on. Open it." He tried to cover his embarrassment by guiding her toward one of the plush chairs. They were in Michael's living room. Bobby refused to think of the house as Michael and Diedre's, despite the fact that she lived there. Everything in it was arranged to Michael's taste, so it was just Michael's house.


Diedre sat and began to open the present. Her eyes went wide as she pulled the last of the tissue away and spied the yellow cloth. She shook out the dress and held it out in front of her, staring at it in wonder.


"Bobby, it's beautiful. . ." She glanced over at him and then away, shyly. "Thank you." Slowly she folded it up into a neat pile in her lap. She seemed almost afraid to look at him.


"So, go try it on." Bobby hoped he didn't sound to eager, but he was dying to see her in that dress again.


"Oh no, I couldn't." Diedre gave a small shake of her head. "Michael hates yellow."


Bobby's normally simmering hatred of Michael flared to life. "Well, I'm not Michael," he said stiffly.


Diedre looked up at him in surprise, as if he'd said something illuminating. She blinked several times, and then agreed, "No, you're not." He couldn't identify the emotion in her voice.


His heart started hammering as she stood. But all she said was, "I'll be right back." His panic began to abate when he realized that she had taken the dress with her. He wasn't sure if she was mad at him or what. She didn't sound mad, but she didn't sound happy either.


Frank watched him with a poorly hidden expression of sympathy. After a moment, Bobby got up to wander the room, giving some kind of vent to his overwhelming uncertainty. He'd had this mental image of Diedre wearing that yellow dress and throwing herself into his arms. Of feeling the bare skin of her shoulders beneath his hands. . . He cut that thought off savagely. That wasn't someplace he was allowed to go, and he would only drive himself insane fantasizing about it.


A small sound from the other side of the room alerted him. He turned to see Diedre standing in the doorway. She was dressed in yellow. The short skirt flared about her bare legs as she walked slowly into the room. Several paces away from Bobby she stopped and did a gentle pirouette, watching him over her shoulder as she turned.


"What do you think?" she asked. Her blue eyes watched him eagerly.


There were no words for what Bobby really thought. Nothing could accurately describe the sensation in his heart.


"You're beautiful," he managed in a whisper.


Diedre flushed and looked down. "Really?"


Bobby swallowed convulsively and nodded. "You are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."


Diedre's head snapped up and her eyes sought out his. It was as if the simple compliment had awakened a kind of hunger in her. Bobby found himself mesmerized by her gaze. He would have been perfectly happy to stand there and stare at her forever.


His heart nearly went into convulsions as she swayed a step nearer, and then another, until she could reach up and put a delicate hand on his chest. She was at just the right distance for him to put his hands around her waist, so he did, and she leaned into his grasp. He didn't dare breathe as she stretched up onto her toes, putting them at the same height. Their faces were a mere inch apart. Bobby could feel the warmth of her breath on his mouth and smell the perfume of her hair. Her eyes stared directly into his, filled to overflowing with emotion. Then her gaze dropped away and she tilted her head. Bobby felt the gentle touch of her lips at the corner of his mouth, and was stunned by the electric thrill the kiss sent through him. But before he could respond, she was moving away, sliding out of his arms and taking a step backwards.


Her eyes had not lost their warmth, though. She smiled happily at him. "Thank you."


The clock on the wall chimed then, shattering the moment. Diedre started violently, and her smile turned rueful. "Aren't we supposed to be practicing?"





Thoroughly wrung out from his afternoon with Diedre, Bobby drove in through the mansion's main gate. More than anything, he wanted to find someplace where he could be alone for a while, to try to sort out what, if anything, had just happened between them. His heart told him that she had made some kind of decision about him. The only problem was, he had no idea what it might be.


Despite his preoccupation, he noticed the unfamiliar car in the driveway as he passed, and his heart sank. Visitors. These days, that was rarely a good thing, and he didn't feel like he had the energy to put on the ordinary-run-of-the-mill-private-school facade for whoever it might be. Hopefully he could just walk right through and up to his room without anyone noticing. Scott was in charge of handling visitors.


He walked in the door, and was immediately struck by the amount of tension in the room. That was his first observation, before he took in anything else. Everyone there was very, very uncomfortable. Gazes snapped to him as he entered.


Bobby looked around. The visitors were a pair of men that Bobby's instinct immediately labeled as cops. His heart froze. They know was his first thought, but he forced himself not to panic. He would give himself away for sure, then.


"What's going on?" he asked Jean, who was standing closest to the two men. Other X-Men were scattered about the main entry, watching with wary curiosity. The two men pretended to ignore them.


Jean waved him over. "Bobby, these are Detectives Bulle and Dalton. They want to ask Remy some questions." Her voice held a quiet dismay.


Bobby blinked in surprise. "Remy?" Not me? "What about?"


One of the men-Detective Bulle-gave Bobby an appraising stare. "And you are. . . ?"


"Robert Drake." Remy had told him repeatedly not to give the cops trouble. About anything. It only made them suspicious.


"And you're also a student at this. . " he waved his pen at the ceiling, "establishment?"


Bobby ignored the subtle slight on the legitimacy of the school. "Yes."


That seemed to satisfy him for the moment. He turned away from Bobby and went back to studying the room.


Bobby took advantage of the chance to move away from the two detectives. He found himself drifting over to where Logan stood with Sam. Ororo stood a few feet away from them, her expression troubled. She seemed to be wrapped up in a blanket of solitude, despite how close she was.


"What do they think Remy did?" Bobby couldn't help but ask Logan in a low voice.


Logan shrugged. "Haven't said."


Bobby wanted to ask another question, but he didn't know what. And he didn't get the chance as Logan turned toward the door that led to the west wing of the house. After a moment, the door opened and Scott pushed Professor Xavier into the room. Bobby was only momentarily surprised by the ordinary wheelchair. They didn't often have guests at the house that didn't know about the X- Men. Gambit entered behind the Professor, his expression closed. He looked somewhat disheveled, as if Scott had gotten him out of bed.


Considering the condition he came home in yesterday, that's not surprising. Bobby watched as he crossed the room a step behind the Professor, noting with interest that he no longer appeared to be limping.


"Detectives, I'm Professor Xavier. I am Headmaster at this school." The Professor looked between the two men.


Detective Bulle nodded, but his eyes were fixed on Gambit. "You must be Remy LeBeau."


"Dat's de rumor." Remy stood casually, with one hand resting lightly on the corner of the Professor's wheelchair. Bobby envied him his calm. He was a nervous wreck, and the cops weren't even interested in him. But at least the Professor was there. He was known to be an influential, if somewhat withdrawn, member of the scientific community. He was also wealthy. The police wouldn't antagonize him unnecessarily by mistreating one of his students.


"Mr. LeBeau, do you mind if we ask you some questions?" That was the other detective. His tone was far more polite.


Remy shrugged. "Non."


Detective Dalton dug out a small notebook from his jacket pocket and opened it. "Where were you the night before last?"


Bobby's gut twisted. They had to be talking about the diamonds. Remy's expression never changed. "Queens."


The detective's eyebrows lifted in surprise. "All night?"


"Oui."


"Did anyone see you? Could anyone verify that you were there?"


Remy snorted. "I doubt it." Then he cocked his head. "Y' wan' tell me what dis is about?" He sounded genuinely curious.


The sheer flatness of the detectives' expression made it clear that they did not believe Remy for one minute. "Nearly two million dollars in diamonds was stolen from Hierman Direct Imports last night." Detective Bulle paused as a ripple of surprise ran through the room. The only people who didn't react, Bobby noticed, were Gambit, the Professor, and himself. Even Logan's expression narrowed as if he were entertaining thoughts of Remy's guilt for the first time, and Bobby felt a sharp stab of regret. Were the X-Men going to believe that Remy had gone back to stealing, even though he was innocent?


Detective Bulle looked at his notes for a moment before continuing, "The Special Investigations Unit looked the place over. Pretty slick job." He looked up at Remy, expression unyielding. "According to the experts, there's a moderate list of people who could have done it, and a much shorter list of people who would've done it that way. And guess what? Only one of the people on the short list lives in New York. That would be you." He pointed the capped end of his pen at Remy.


Remy's expression of faint interest never changed. "I t'ink y' must have me confused wit' somebody else."


Anger sparked in Bulle's eyes. "I don't think so, Mr. LeBeau." He managed to make an insult of the honorific and Bobby found himself bristling. But he was too terrified of what the police might do to him if he confessed, to step out and defend Remy's innocence.


Bulle turned his attention to the Professor. "Do you mind if we take a look around?" he asked casually.


The Professor's response was mild. "Bring me a search warrant and I will show you whatever you would like to see." Bulle's polite smile died and Bobby cheered silently. Thank goodness the Professor trusted Gambit. It was painfully obvious from the faces around the room that no one else did. Bobby was surprised by how angry that realization made him. Even Ororo watched the scene as if she believed that Remy had done it. The sadness in her eyes would not be there if she did not. Bobby knew that she would not love Remy any less, but her disappointment was apparent. Bobby's gut twisted. This was his fault, but he wasn't sure what he could do to fix things. Even if he told the X-Men that it was him, not Remy, who had stolen the diamonds, they would still hold Remy responsible because he had been the one that taught Bobby how to do it.


Lost in thought, Bobby barely noticed as the two detectives asked a few more questions and then took their leave. On some level Bobby was almost titillated to realize that he had made a pinch on his own, and had left no real evidence for the cops to find. They would have arrested Remy if they'd had anything. But most of him was frightened and angry. At himself. At the X-Men. At Michael.


Bobby's head snapped up in alarm as Scott turned on Remy. His anger was unmistakable, but more than that, Bobby could see a kind of hurt, as if Scott was taking all of this as a personal failing. "I think you have some explaining to do," he said stiffly.


"Not t' you," Remy retorted, and Bobby saw Scott's jaw tighten. The two men locked hostile gazes until Professor Xavier cleared his throat.


Remy shot the Professor what Bobby would have sworn was a warning look, and Bobby wondered. What in the world had Gambit been doing? Obviously, the Professor knew, but Remy didn't seem to want him to say anything in his defense. It didn't make any sense.


Without another word, Remy turned. His flat gaze swept the room and the assembled X-Men. His expression was unreadable, but Bobby had spent enough time with him to see the tiny flinch as Storm looked away from him. He walked silently across the hardwood floor, the gentle rustle of his clothing the only sound in the stillness. Then he was gone, and Bobby found himself letting out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.


The Professor watched the door for several moments, as if waiting for Remy to move out of earshot. Then he turned to Scott.


"Unless the police return, I would prefer that this subject not be mentioned again."


Scott's jaw dropped. "But--?"


The Professor shook his head. "That wasn't a request." Something in his expression was indefinably sad.


Scott stared at him for several moment. "Sir. . . do you really think it's a good idea to ignore. . .?"


"I am not ignoring anything, Scott. I promise you." The Professor folded his hands in his lap, almost as if he were forcing himself to be calm.


Scott accepted that reluctantly, and the X-Men in the room began to disperse. Bobby was ready for the speculation that sprang up even before people were through the door, but it still made him mad. And it made him wonder. As much as he now knew about Gambit, it seemed that there was still an awful lot he didn't know. But maybe it was time to remedy that. Remy had shown more of himself to Bobby than to anyone else, and maybe now it was time to repay some of that trust. Perhaps he couldn't exonerate Gambit in the other X-Men's eyes, but at least he could be honest with the man.


Unnoticed by the other X-Men, Bobby slipped out of the room and headed for the stairs.





Bobby knocked tentatively on Gambit's door and was rewarded with a curt "What?" from inside the room. It was obvious Remy couldn't think of anyone he wanted to talk to at the moment. Bobby couldn't blame him, and he had the sneaking suspicion that Remy wasn't going to want to have anything to do with him, either, once he'd heard what Bobby had done.


Before his stomach could twist itself into even tighter knots, Bobby grabbed the doorknob and stepped inside.


"Um, hi," he told the figure that stood with its back to him.


Remy spun on his heel to face Bobby, and every warning instinct that Bobby had began to scream. But Gambit was simply too fast. Before the alarm could travel from his brain to his limbs, Gambit was across the room. A hand closed painfully tight around his throat, and he felt himself being shoved against the closed door behind him. His breath whooshed out of him as he hit the door, but the hand pressing against his throat made it nearly impossible to draw another gulp air. He gagged, fighting his panic response that prompted him to strike out at Remy with any and all weapons at his disposal. Whether thief of X-Man, Gambit had the right to be angry.


Gambit's red irises glowed as he stared into Bobby's eyes from a distance of mere inches. But despite their demonic appearance, Bobby found that he wasn't afraid anymore.


"Was it you?" Remy demanded so harshly his voice cracked.


Unable to breathe, Bobby could only nod. The pressure on his throat disappeared abruptly, and he sagged against the door, coughing, as he gulped the sweet air. Remy stood a few feet away, staring at him with an expression of complete confusion.


"I don't understand," he finally said. The glow of his eyes had been snuffed, and he looked more bewildered than Bobby had ever seen him.


Bobby straightened, running absent fingers through his overlong hair. It had become a habit as his bangs grew down to the point that they could fall in his eyes. "It was Michael's idea." He made a helpless gesture.


The bewildered expression vanished and Remy's eyes narrowed. "What do y' mean?"


Bobby could only shrug. "He's the Guildmaster and he ordered me. I didn't know what else to do."


Bobby watched as his mentor's expression slid back into anger. This time, it was directed solely at Bobby. "Y' could've said somet'ing t' me." His voice was dangerously soft.


All of Bobby's uncertainty coalesced and exploded out of him. "No I couldn't! If I'd come and told you that Michael wanted me to go on a job with him, you would have ordered me not to go! Admit it."


Remy didn't say anything, but his expression allowed that Bobby might be right.


"And then Michael would have had a reason to come down on you. He's looking for an excuse to kill you! So I figured if I went with him, he wouldn't have anything to use against you-or me, since I did what he wanted. And I did it right." Bobby lifted his chin defiantly. "So if you want to take it out of my hide for lying to you, then go ahead. At least Michael's got nothing on either one of us."


Remy stared at him, as if he needed time to absorb the speech. Bobby could tell that he had quit being angry, though other than that, he couldn't read anything from him at all.


"Did you make de pinch?" Remy asked after a moment. "You, personally?"


Bobby nodded, wondering why that was suddenly so important. Remy sounded like he wanted to be absolutely sure. "Yeah. Michael and the rest just followed along." At Remy's questioning look, he added, "Michael had two of his apprentices with him, but none of them did anything."


"Are y' sure o' dat? Absolutely not'ing?"


"Yes!" Bobby was almost starting to feel aggravated. "What, don't you believe I could make a pinch on my own?"


Remy pursed his lips. "Oh, I known y' been ready f' a while now. Actually, I been wonderin' how I was gon' keep hidin' it." He smiled sardonically. "Guess I don' have to now."


"What do you mean?" A small knot was forming in Bobby's stomach.


Gambit raised his eyebrows, and Bobby was terribly afraid it was out of pure amusement. "Do y' remember what I told y' `bout sponsoring in de Guild?"


Bobby grimaced. "Not really. That was months ago." Way back at the beginning when I wasn't listening to you.


Remy backed up, and then settled on the edge of his bed. He bent down to rub his knee as he talked. "Sponsorin' is de process by which an apprentice is invited t' become a full member o' de Guild. When de leaders decide dat he's ready, one o' de most experienced t'ieves will be chosen t' sponsor de apprentice. Dat means dat de t'ief takes de apprentice on his first real job. It's like a rite o' passage." Remy looked up, skewering Bobby where he stood. "Michael sponsored you." His expression quirked. "Wit'out consultin' me, which is anot'er issue entirely."


Bobby digested the information, but he had the feeling he'd missed the real meaning of what Remy was saying. "I still don't think I understand," he finally admitted.


Remy straightened and crossed his arms. "Y' were sponsored, an' y' made de pinch successfully. Dat means y' graduated."


Bobby began to understand as Remy drove the point home.


"Y' jus' became a full fledged member o' de New York T'ieves Guild. Congratulations."


Bobby nearly choked as the implications hit him. "Are you serious?" he managed to gasp out.


Remy nodded. "Dere's some ceremonial stuff t' do t' make it official, but oui, I am." He cocked his head as if considering something new. "Michael sure knows how t' build his traps."


A cold hand clutched Bobby's insides. "Did I do the wrong thing?"


Remy considered him, and then shrugged. "Under de circumstances, probably not. But-" and he pointed a finger at Bobby, "dis does present us wit' a problem. As a guildmember, y' now equally beholden t' y' Guildmaster as t' de Master dat taught y' de craft. Michael's gon' try t' used dat."


Bobby could only stare at him. "What should I do?" he finally asked.


Remy shrugged again. "Dat's up t' you. Play along f' now, certainly. Michael's not gon' try anyt'ing immediate." His eyes narrowed. "But if y' really love dis lady o' yours, I suggest y' start makin' plans t' run away wit' her. Most o' de protection I could give y' is gone now. If Michael ever finds out de truth. . . he'll kill y', an' dere may or may not be anyt'ing I c'n do about it."





Part Eighteen
[Lori McDonald]


Remy LeBeau raced his neon yellow ferrari down the road at breakneck speed, barely hearing the roar of the engine or the scream of the tires as he accelerated even more into a turn, taking the car wide into the far lane and almost sideswiping a pinto as it tried to get out of his way. He didn't care and pushed the accelerator closer to the floor. The car responded with an even higher acceleration and his mouth set into a wide grin.


He loved the speed, the rush of adrenaline, the surge of power in the engine and the roar in his ears.


Beats sittin' on dat damn roof.


So what if the X-Men didn't trust him? It wasn't like they ever really did. He was used to that, and while it annoyed him, and Stormy's reaction cut him deeply, it was too beautiful a day for him to let it eat him up inside. He had far too much living to do.


The ferrari went around another corner. Perhaps their mistrust was partly his fault, he thought. He hadn't exactly been fully honest with them about who he was and what he did with his time. But then again, neither was Wolverine, and for the entire time she was with the team, they never found out Rogue's name. He was really no different from them and he refused to be treated differently. He would not spill his soul just to earn the respect of anal retentives like Scott Summers, because he never would. He knew his type. Perfection could only be achieved as he defined it, and Remy already stood outside the boundaries of his definition of trustworthy.


Remy's grin widened as the car went flawlessly through a series of hairpin turns. Someday, he'd actually have to tell old fearless leader about how he was the professor's eyes and ears into the mutant underground. Just to watch them pop out behind those ruby glasses. It'd be fun, but it'd be pointless, and more trouble than it was worth. It was better by far to evade demands to know where he went every night than to have Scott decide he couldn't do this himself and stick his nose in.


At least he had the professor's trust, and his alibi. Without it, he'd be sitting in a police station trying to talk himself out of being arrested permanently, a situation that he'd found lost its charm back when he was thirteen. And by taking the blame on himself without ever admitting he did anything, at least he could protect Bobby. He was used to the flack, but that poor kid was going to have enough problems dealing with the Guild and his new position. Shoulda tol' me, Bobby, he mused, going over a hill so fast he was momentarily airborne. He'd have to check the suspension when he got home. He had no idea how he'd have protected him without risking all of the status he'd worked for, but he could have come up with something. He closed his eyes, trusting to his powers to guide him as he pushed the car to its maximum. Bobby was just a pawn to Michael, a way to get at HIM. At one point in his life, he might have cut him loose, let him try and make it on his own as had been done to him so many times, but he wasn't that man anymore. Wasn't that boy, for no 'man' would do that to his own. As long as he was his mentor, Robert Drake would pay none of the Guild's prices, whether in money, blood, or soul.





It was raining in the garden. Just in the garden, on a patch of land barely a meter across, and on the bowed head of Ororo Munroe as she knelt in the middle of it, staring at her roses. Bobby gaped out the window at her, forgetting the halfmade sandwich in his hand. "Uh, what's wrong with Storm?" Behind him, Wolverine puffed on a cigar, ignoring the rule against not smoking in the house. "Don't know. She ain't said and it doesn't look ta me like she wants nobody askin'." Bobby turned to look at the smaller man. "But this is weird. Normally she just lights up the sky and sulks in her room when she's upset." "So? Woman's allowed her moods. Leave her alone until she wants ta talk about it." Belatedly remembering his sandwich just as the tomato threatened to fall on the floor, Bobby hastily slapped the other slice of bread on it and froze it solid. Wolverine didn't even blink. Nor did he when Jean breezed into the kitchen for a glass of water, grabbed his cigar, dunked it out in his coffee cup and stuck it back in his mouth, end first, after which she breezed back out again.


Knowing better than to laugh, Bobby followed her.





Finally, his curiousity got the better of him.


It wasn't just curiousity. In the midst of one of his speeches on what lockpicks to use, how to bribe a border guard into not checking what you've got in that unconspicuous suitcase, and what kind of wine goes with souffle, Remy talked about trust. Trust as a nonabsolute.


Bobby hadn't been entirely convinced. To Remy, trust was an iffy thing. He trusted his family, and his friends - Bobby liked to think he trusted him as well - but his trust was less than Bobby would have expected from an X-Man for his teammates. But in the world of the Guilds, you could never be sure that you weren't about to get sold out by those around you. It'd happened to Remy, he remembered. So he'd learned to keep an eye even on the people he loved. To watch for suspicious behaviour, and to always be there for them. Not just to be a friend, but to be close enough to spot if something was about to go sour. It was a cynical view Bobby hated, but the Cajun's teachings had soaked into him, even when he didn't approve of them. So finally, near dusk, he grabbed an umbrella and went outside to talk to Storm. To be there if she needed him, and to make sure there wasn't an explosion coming on the horizon.


"Hey," he called softly as he walked up behind her. "I brought you an umbrella." It sounded lame, but he grinned nevertheless. Storm was only rained on when she wanted to be, but he hoped she'd appreciate the jest.


Ororo just sat in the grass, her arms folded around her drawn up knees. With her white dress plastered to her skin, as well as he flowing white hair, she more closely resembled a little girl than the woman she was. "Thank you, but no, Robert," she said softly. Bobby knelt beside her. "Do you want to talk?" He asked softly. "About whatever's bothering you, I mean."


She shook her head. "Again, thank you but no."


She'd always been so formal, so tightly controlled. She had to be, to keep control of the weather that responded to her every mood. He didn't know anyone who could get her out of one of her rare funks, except Remy.


He decided to try the same approach. "You realize," he teased. "That we're going to need a bigger house."


She looked at him oddly.


"For the animals," he explained. "They'll be coming in twos. The mama bear, and the papa bear, and the elephants, and the giraffes, and the dirty politicians, 'cause you know they GOTTA be another species..."


Faintly, a smile touched her lips.


Encouraged, Bobby pressed on. "We'll have to put in hay, and stuff, and find places to put them all. You think Warren would mind giving up his closet space? I mean, it's not like he'll need all those clothes, and it'll be hard for him to fly with all this rain. He'll be like a winged rock in the air, I think."


Ororo smiled a little wider. "I get the point, Robert." The rain eased up, then vanished.


Bobby grinned, using exaggerated motions to fold his umbrella and lay it beside him. "There, now that we don't have to worry about flooding the whole basement, hangar, Morlock Tunnels, etc, what's up? And I warn you. I'm prepared to use the dreaded tickle attack if you don't answer my questions." He'd heard Remy use that one, but somehow it sounded a whole lot less innocent when he did it.


Ororo looked away. "It is a personal matter."


"Tell that to my wet socks. Come on, Storm, it's obviously bothering you. Tell me and I'll buy you an ice cream." He face took on a wheedling expression. "Please..." he whined. "Pretty please with a cherry on top and lots of whip cream and..."


"Robert!" Ororo shook her head. "You are impossible."


"Well, yeah," he grinned. "That's part of my charm."


He was getting to her. He could see it, and it amazed him that he was becoming so perceptive. Carefully, he sat close and put an arm around her. "You can tell me, Storm," he promised. "I swear I'll keep it to myself."


She caved. "It is Remy," she admitted. "I have been horrible to him."


Confused, Bobby cast back through his memory of the last twenty four hours. As far as he could tell, Storm was the only one who HADN'T been whispering about Gambit, in spite of the Professor's order. Even Bishop was doing it, though usually to declare loudly that if it HAD been Gambit, there wouldn't have been ANY clues left behind. Bobby was faintly insulted by that.


He shook himself mentally. "Come again? How?"


The Wind Rider sighed. "I doubted him. The police came here and accused him, and I doubted him in my heart, and he saw it in my eyes. I cannot forgive myself for that betrayal." It began to rain again.


With his free hand, Bobby grabbed the umbrella and opened it over both of them. "But you don't now."


"No." She whispered. "And I never should have. I once worked with Remy. I knew he only stole from those who were criminals in his mind. He would never steal from the place which was robbed."


Whereas I would. Bobby thought. Crap. He hugged her, for both her and himself. "Well, make it up to him."


"How can I do that?"


Bobby shrugged, not aware that she was asking him with the same belief and respect she would have Professor Xavier.


"I guess just say you're sorry."





Remy arrived back at the mansion well after midnight. Still a little pissed at the other X-Men, he didn't bother to try and keep quiet, but instead revved his ferrari up the drive and screeched it to a halt in front of the main doors instead of the garage, just where Scott hated for vehicles to be left. It was petty, but sometimes petty was fun.


Whistling to himself, he strode up to the door, swung it open, and was greeted by the sight of candles.


What de hell...?


Slowly, he stepped inside and closed the door softly behind him. The foyer of the mansion was filled with candles, all different sizes, different lengths, various colours; some scented, some not, some in ornate holders and candelabras, some stuck on old plates or saucers. Remy appraised them with a raised eyebrow and grinned. Pretty li'l fire hazard.


Closing his eyes, he concentrated, letting his awareness move out through the house, touching each member in turn. Warren and Psylocke were asleep in his room- no, Betsy was awake, he could feel her stroking her lover's wings, which he had wrapped over her in place of a blanket. A few doors down, Bobby slept, unmoving as he'd tried to teach him. A thief who may have to sleep anywhere couldn't afford to roll around too much. Neither could an X-Man for that matter.


In another room across the hall, Cannonball hadn't learned that lesson. The youth was rolling over repeatedly, trying to get comfortable, and only succeeding in wrapping himself in a cocoon of blankets. Wolverine lay almost imperceptably in the room beyond him, only apparent to Remy the way the breathing of a wild animal would be seen by him.


In the centre of the house, his mind grazed Charles's body, to see he was in bed as well. A sleepy question came his way, but he dodged it. He wasn't in the mood for conversation.


In the left wing of the house, there was no movement, and he swallowed a pang. All the women had elsewhere to sleep, and the wing was empty. He didn't dare let his mind touch the room at the near end, and the pain of feeling the emptiness in Rogue's bed.


There was movement in the trees behind him, Bishop on guard duty. Scott and Jean he assumed were in their boathouse at the lake, but it was beyond his range of detection. Beast was barely detectable in his lab below ground. Storm sat in her loft.


Remy grinned. That was everyone accounted for, so obviously, the candles were meant for him.


"I wonder what goin' on?" He mused as he went to the nearest candle, an ornate beeswax of the palest blue. Gently, he bent over it and blew it out with a faint breath of air.


He blew out all the candles, one at a time, admiring the craftwork in some of them as he did so, but they'd done their job of greeting him and he wouldn't want to see them melted all away to nothing now that they had.


Candles led the way down the hallway and he followed them, blowing each out as he went so that he was always stepping from the darkness into the light. They led into the kitchen, where a bucket of ice holding a champagne bottle waited, by two crystal goblets. He ran a finger around the rim of one, savouring the song the crystal sang to him, then picked them both up with one hand, the bucket with the other.


The candles led through the dining room, where they'd been arranged in a pattern that led him around the room to blow them all out, past pictures of the X-Men hung on the walls to one small one in a wood frame that sat on a shelf on the far wall. If was a familiar picture and he grinned at the two people mugging for the camera in it. He'd had his suspicions who had laid this lovely gauntlet for him to run. Nice t' see I was right. Chuckling, he left the two candles flanking the picture lit and continued on, following the glowing trail.


The candles led the way through the dining area to the side enterance to the living room, where again he had to follow them through the room to the coffee table where a bouquet of white roses lay. His smile broadened with pleasure. White roses weren't his favourite, but he knew whose they were. Juggling the bucket under his arm, he picked up the bouquet and continued on.


The path led to one of the back stairs up to the second floor, into the women's wing. He remembered it was empty sadly, but the path avoided Rogue's door, leaving it in shadow, and instead led down the hall, lighting every other door. At Jean's old room, there leaned a broken droid, one used long ago in a Danger Room session. It resembled Jean and he laughed. He remembered that session, one of his first as part of the new blue team. He'd beaten her, thinking she was the real Jean, and stolen a kiss. Right before he got blown across the room. Cyclops had been unamused, but Jean had loved it, he recalled, and teased him for weeks afterwards, which he'd loved.


The candles led to Betsy's room. Outside it lay some of his cards, and her sword, a reminder of all the practices they'd shared. A shredded sash reminded him of the one he was obviously supposed to remember. A battle between them that swept out of the Danger Room, through the house, and up to the roof. It was violent, vicious, and annoyed Scott to no end, especially since, in spite of the wild moves they used, no one got hurt, nothing was broken, and he only figured out it happened because the security computer recorded it. Defending each other while he demanded an explanation was the one time Remy and Betsy really got along, and they'd managed to frustrate Scott into letting them both off the hook.


The candles led the way down the passage that connected the two wings of the house. At one point, the single line doubled, but he didn't blow the second set out, suspecting they were a line to lead him back.


The candles paused at the Professor's door. Before it lay his enrollment papers in the school, which claimed his name was Gambit, with no real name, that he lived nowhere, had no references, no schooling, no next of kin, no anything. Most of the lines were blank except for a happy face next to his signature and the professor's signature below that, accepting him into the school. Remy's grin softened. He'd never expected Charles to ever make him a student, and had been halfway out the door before he was called telepathically and told he had a permanent place in the X-Men if he wanted it.


In the men's wing, the candles showed a pile of bankbooks before Warren's door, and he had to bit down a laugh. He was pretty sure that Warren had made a lot of money from his tips. It looked like his candle layer knew it too. Before Cannonball's lay a tiny toy ferrari. Sam had shown a lot of interest in his car and in return for washing it regularily, he'd allowed himself to permit the young man to drive it on the grounds. Sam had been walking high for days. Wolverine's door held two mats, plain woven ones used when sitting during meditation and before a Kata. Logan never used them, but Remy understood the reference. On some of his down days, Logan had dragged him off the roof and gotten him to do katas with him. They weren't really his thing, but he couldn't deny the inner peace they gave him in small amounts, or the effort Logan had to put out to share them with anybody. Cyclops' door showed simply a plain, regulation X-Man communicator, the one Scott always threatened to staple to his forehead if he didn't wear, so that they would know when he needed them. Bishop's door held a gun, a plain colt .45 that Remy had admired once and Bishop gave to him without hesitation. The date of that day was written on a postcard beside it and he sucked in his breath as he realized for the first time that Bishop gave him the gun on father's day. Beast's door held ticket stubs, from all the movies they'd gone to see before the scientist had to devote all his time to the legacy virus.


Bobby's door was the last. Before it was half of a friendship ring and Remy smiled. He'd never given Bobby anything like it, but he understood what it meant.


The door opened. Bobby looked out at him sleepily, then his gaze lit on the flowers and champagne he held. A mischevious look crossed his face.


"Gee, boss, this is so... so sudden."


Remy barked a laugh. "Ver' funny. Dey not f' you. I'm jus' followin' a path." He nodded his head at the extinguished candles, and those that led the way back out. "I'm havin' fun."


Bobby looked and chuckled. "Seems like it. Tell me all the gory details in the morning?"


"Only if y' good."


"Aw!"


Remy bent, scooped up the ring and tossed it to him. Bobby caught it without even looking. "Go back t' sleep, boy."


Bobby wandered back into his room, staring at the ring in his palm and Remy returned down the hall. The candles led him in a straight line now, out of the men's wing and to a door just a few meters past the one leading to Charles' apartment. Remy opened it and followed the candles that glowed up each step that was revealed.


They led into a loft and stopped. Remy blew out the last one and looked up to see that the room he'd entered was lit by moonlight filtering in through the open skylight, illuminating the expanse of plants that filled the loft and brought with them a gentle breeze that played lovingly with his hair like a woman's fingers. Just like a woman's fingers. Remy crossed to a table and laid the roses down, then uncorked the champagne bottle and filled the two glasses. With a glass in each hand, he turned.


"What's de special occasion, Stormy?" He asked.


Storm stood regally beside a flowering plant, dressed in a multicoloured sarong with her long hair flowing loose. "I wished to apologize for ever doubting you, and to celebrate my, and all of our, friendship with you."


Remy smiled, blinking away a sudden moisture in his eyes and walked over to hand her a glass. "Den, friend, let's drink t' all a us."





Part Nineteen
[Valerie Jones]


Bobby slouched in his chair at the corner of the kitchen table, quietly munching on a piece of toast. He was conducting a sort of experiment-something Remy had suggested to him at some point-and today he was giving it a try.


Most of the current residents of the mansion milled about in the kitchen, filling their breakfast plates and talking. Tension was running a little high because Gambit was in the room, but as far as Bobby could tell, the thief was happy to ignore it. He and Storm had entered together, talking animatedly, and Bobby was glad to see that Storm had taken his advice. And with her usual flair, he thought, remembering his brief and somewhat bleary encounter with Gambit the night before. He did wonder just what part the champagne and roses had played, though. Tsking to himself, he steered his thoughts away. They were both consenting adults. And if anything interesting had happened, he was certain he could get it out of Remy eventually.


So far, not one person had said good morning to Bobby. He found himself wanting to laugh at how blindingly simple it was, but that would ruin his experiment. He was, for all intents and purposes, invisible. Except to Gambit, who he was certain had noticed him, though he had given no sign. Bobby suppressed his grin. It was the true art of invisibility. Even Wolverine, though he could certainly smell him, hadn't consciously registered Bobby's presence, and until Bobby did something to bring attention to himself, he probably wouldn't.


"Ah heard somethin' interesting on the mornin' news," Sam said, stirring his eggs with his fork. As always, he seemed a little bashful, as if he felt he might be speaking out of turn. Ears perked up though, since Sam rarely started conversations at the table.


"Is this interesting-good or interesting-bad news that you have to report?" Hank was already halfway through his second plate.


"Uh, good ah suppose."


The X-Men watched him with collective interest as the other conversations around the room stilled. Sam blanched ever so slightly. "Ah heard they made an arrest in that jewel heist."


Around the room, eyes snapped to Gambit, who leaned casually against the sink, chewing on a piece of bacon. He returned their gazes with flat disinterest.


"Who was it?" Logan asked.


Sam shrugged. "Ah don't right know. Some guy in Chicago. They found a bunch o' the diamonds in his apartment."


Bobby frowned to himself. Who in the world did the police arrest? The fence?


Scott turned to Remy, and Bobby could read the suppressed anger in his face. "Why didn't you just tell us you didn't do it?" he demanded.


Remy snorted and tossed the half-eaten slice of bacon back onto the plate. "'Cause den y' would have t'ought I was a liar as well as a t'ief."


The two men stared at each other in tense silence until Remy pushed himself away from the counter and strode from the room. Scott watched him until he had disappeared from sight and then turned back to the table with a frustrated sigh.


"He should have said something," he said to no one in particular.


Ororo cocked her head and regarded him coolly. "On the contrary, Scott. He should not have needed to."





Bobby fiddled nervously with the cuff of his shirt while Remy watched him in amusement, the heavy folds of an ornate cloak draped over one arm. Bobby wasn't used to the archaic styles that the Guild used for its ceremonial dress, and the strings that held the linen shirt together itched intolerably.


"How much longer?" he asked Remy for what seemed like the hundredth time.


"A while." Which was all the answer Remy had ever given him to that particular question. Bobby wasn't sure whether it was because he was being purposely vague, or if he just didn't know.


They were standing in the center of a small anteroom off of the main Guild Hall. Bobby had been in the Hall only once before, and found the atmosphere daunting. It was a bit like being in a cathedral. The anteroom was reassuringly small, with soft carpet and a couple of padded chairs. Not that Bobby could sit. He'd tried it once, only to jump up five minutes later and return to his restless meanderings. If the induction ceremony didn't start soon, he was certain he would die of impatience. It seemed like they'd been waiting forever.


Remy finally stirred himself and shook out the long cloak he was holding. "Here. Y' might as well put dis on. I'm gon' have t' go in a minute." The cloak was made of some kind of heavy black cloth and trimmed in coarse black fur. An abstract-looking design was stitched into it with gray thread. Bobby knew that the pattern was the Guild emblem, but he had yet to decipher exactly what it was supposed to be.


The cloak was even heavier than Bobby expected, and he shifted his shoulders uncomfortably while Remy gave him an appraising stare.


"Y' sure y' wan' do dis, Bobby?" The question was gentle.


Bobby paused, thinking. Remy was giving him one more chance to walk away, and that in itself was significant. He wasn't the type to repeat himself. Unconsciously, Bobby rubbed the back of his neck. Remy had walked him through the steps of the ceremony, and had explained in detail the commitment Bobby would be making to the Guild. Remy had tried to impress on him the fact that, after tonight, he would never be able to walk away. No matter what life he lived, he would be marked permanently as a member of the Guilds. It was a stigma-and, oddly enough, a responsibility-that he would never be able to erase. But it was also a doorway to a world Bobby was only just beginning to see. A Guild thief had access to people and information that most of the rest of the world didn't even know existed. And, it was his only access to Diedre. It seemed strange that he was willing to make a lifetime commitment to something that went against everything he was raised to believe was right, just for the chance to spend the rest of that life with her. But Bobby knew that it was more than that. Yes, Diedre was part of his motivation, but the truth was that he wanted the life Remy had shown him. He knew it would cost him his middle-class, suburban innocence, and maybe more. But there were amazing resources out there, and people like Gambit had so much more power to help mutants than even the X-Men.


"I'm sure," he answered, and thought he saw a flicker of approval in Remy's eyes.


"Den I'd better get goin', neh?" He flashed a grin and turned toward the door.


"Uh, Remy?"


The other man paused with his hand on the doorknob and looked back.


"In case I forget to tell you later. . .thanks."


Remy turned all the way around. His expression was skeptical. "F' makin' y' a t'ief?"


Bobby shook his head. "Not really. For. . . opening my eyes." He grinned self-consciously. "For having a little patience. For believing in me when nobody else did."


Remy looked away, seeming almost embarrassed. "Wasn' not'ing." Then he looked up, his expression unreadable. "Besides, maybe it should be me t'anking you."


"What for?" It didn't seem like Gambit had gotten much besides trouble from the whole thing. Even now, Bobby didn't really understand why he had done it.


Remy only shrugged, but a teasing smile leaked around the edges of his poker face. "F' havin' a little patience. F' believin' in me when nobody else did."


Bobby blushed hotly and Remy chuckled. Then his smile faded. "Y' done good, Bobby. Don' let anybody tell y' different."





Bobby took one last, deep breath and started down the path marked out for him. To either side, seven-foot candles shed uneven light on the ancient wood of the Guild Hall floor. All around him, outside of the limits marked by the candles, stood the thieves. They were silent as only those trained to it could be, and they seemed more like a gallery of shadows than real people. Bobby tried to ignore them and to ignore the fluttering in his stomach. Instead, he forced himself to focus on the way in front of him.


The candlelit pathway brought him to the front of the Hall, where he paused. The floor before him had been marked with a giant triangle, perhaps six feet on a side. He was standing exactly at the midpoint of the base, with the boundary less than a step away. A robed figure stood at each point of the triangle, their faces hidden by folds of cloth. The two that stood at the corners of the base were dressed in gray, and a brazier stood in front of each. Bobby looked briefly at the glowing coals, stomach twisting, then forced himself into motion.


He stepped into the triangle and walked to the center, equidistant from each of the figures. As custom required, he bowed first to the figure at the apex. That was supposed to be Remy, but Bobby couldn't tell beneath the encompassing black robe. Then he turned to his right and bowed to the second figure, who should be Michael. Finally, he bowed to the third figure. The approval of three Masters was required to complete the ceremony, but Bobby had no idea who Michael had invited to take the third position. Even Remy hadn't known.


The circle complete, Bobby stood facing Remy once more. Now, he took the four steps that brought him up to his Master. In the silence, he was certain Remy would be able to hear the nervous hammering of his heart.


Remy reached up with black gloved hands and pulled the hood away from his face. He smiled briefly at Bobby, an expression that disappeared as he raised his head to look out at the assembled Guild. His eyes lit with their familiar red glow.


"Does de Guild hear?" he asked, his voice ringing in the giant room.


"We do," the crowd answered in unison. The knot in Bobby's stomach tightened another notch. The entire Guild was assembled, and all of them were watching him. How he carried himself through the ceremony would determine, initially, at least, his position among his new peers. It wasn't an official ranking, but this was when most of the guildmembers would form their opinions of him.


Remy turned his attention back to Bobby, who straightened unconsciously. "Robert Drake, what is y' petition?"


Bobby fought down the urge to clear his throat. These questions were ritual and he knew the answers to give, but that didn't keep him from being terrified.


"Master, I seek position in the Guild." His voice came out nearly normal, and a lot more confident-sounding than Bobby expected.


"What do y' offer for y' acceptance?"


Bobby reached into the single pocket sewn into the cloak he wore and pulled out the lumpy velvet bag inside. He opened the mouth and poured the contents into his palm. The candlelight reflected from the thousands of facets, making the pile of diamonds glow with unearthly brilliance. Bobby knew he was staring at something close to a million dollars, and that they were a portion of the diamonds that Bobby himself had taken.


As required by the ceremony, Bobby spilled the diamonds at the Master's feet. They scattered in a shower of light, the sound of the stones tumbling across the floor seeming inordinately loud in the quiet chamber.


When the sound had died completely, Remy looked past Bobby once again. "Does de Guild accept de offer?"


"We do," they answered again, and Bobby heaved an inward sigh of relief. That was their only chance to deny him entry into the Guild. But, the hard part was still ahead.


Remy looked back at Bobby, who realized suddenly that he could not even see the scruffy X-Man beneath the mantle of authority worn by this Master Thief. Remy would give him no slack because he was an X-Man. Nothing counted here except the law of the Guilds. The red gaze was downright daunting, but Bobby held his chin up.


"What oath do y' make to de Guild?" Remy asked him.


"Blood oath," Bobby answered, and felt a small chill. Blood oath was the most binding agreement. It meant that he would surrender his life before betraying the interests of the Guild or compromising the safety of its members. It also meant that the only punishment for defying the Guild was death. Remy was a very rare example of one who had gone against his Guild and lived, and Bobby's understanding was that there were some questions as to how honorably the New Orleans Guild had acted in the whole situation, so they had not pursued the death penalty.


Bobby understood that, in some ways, he had just placed his loyalty to the Guild above his loyalty to the X-Men. Yet, if his purpose in serving the Guild was to protect mutants, he would still be following the ideals of the X-Men, though maybe not in a way they'd appreciate. It was a dichotomy he wasn't yet certain how he would handle.


A slim dagger appeared in Remy's hand as if he'd conjured it. Bobby was becoming observant enough that he was fairly certain he could identify the sheath's location, despite the fact that he hadn't consciously seen Remy draw the blade.


Hoping that no one would see his nervousness, Bobby extended his arm. Remy caught his hand in a firm grip and drew the dagger across his palm. Bobby managed not to jerk in his grasp at the sudden pain. Blood oath required blood. The wood where Bobby stood was stained black with the blood of those who had gone before him. It was a symbol of unity, and a symbol of the combined commitment of the thieves to their Guild.


Remy held Bobby's hand out while a thin trail of scarlet splashed down onto the floor, coating the diamonds that lay scattered at their feet. Then the dagger disappeared, to be replaced by a strip of gray cloth that Remy wound around his hand. That done, he released Bobby, and the young mutant braced himself. There was only one question left.


Remy's gaze bored into him. "Will y' accept de mark of y' Guild?"


This is your last chance, Bobby, he told himself. If you want to run, do it now. But he was rooted to the floor-frightened of the choice he was making, but somehow utterly certain that he did not want to do anything else.


"I will," he told Remy. He could tell from the other man's expression that he could feel the certainty of his statement.


Remy nodded. "Den kneel, t'ief."


His stomach twisted painfully tight, Bobby did so. Remy mirrored him, and they faced each other across the span of a mere foot. Remy said nothing, only reached towards him. Bobby did not resist as he arranged their arms in a complex grip with Bobby's hands wrapped around the Cajun's forearms and vice versa. He thought it looked a lot like that arrangement by which two people could carry someone in a sort of chair made by their arms. But whatever it was, Bobby was grateful for the solidity of the hands holding him. His own palm burned painfully, but he didn't loosen his grip. He welcomed the distraction.


Behind him, the other two Masters approached. Bobby heard the dual scrapes as each set down the tall brazier he had carried with him. Remy's fingers tightened on his arms, but he didn't look at the older man. Instead, he closed his eyes and waited.


This was the hard part. The Guild marked its members indelibly, as it had done for centuries. In past eras, the mark was simply a brand, seared by heat. But modern technology made a simple scar too easy to duplicate. Now, the mark was a fine filament of gold polymer alloy that was fused into the bone at the base of the skull. It did not contain enough magnetic material to set off even the most sensitive of metal detectors, and would not interfere with medical equipment like a CAT scan. However, it would show up on an X- ray, though only faintly, and the scar remained as an outward proclamation of membership in the Guild.


Bobby felt hands in his hair, pulling it away from his neck. He understood now why thieves rarely wore short hair. Another hand took hold of the top of his head, forcing him to bend forward. Between the hand on his head and Remy's iron grip on his arms, Bobby found himself nearly immobilized. Just as he was beginning to wonder if something had gone wrong, he felt a tremendous stab of pain in the back of his head. He jerked against the hands that held him, but the combined grips held him down. His vision went completely red behind his closed eyelids as the smell of burnt flesh assaulted his nose. It was the most agonizing thing he could remember ever happening to him.


"Breathe," a familiar voice reminded him, and Bobby struggled to unlock his lungs. After a moment, he drew a shuddering breath. I'm not sure I can do this again, he thought desperately. The Guild mark actually had two parts, upper and lower, which represented both the specific Guild chapter Bobby was becoming part of, and the Master who was responsible for his training. The first half was done, bonded to his skull with the intense heat of the chemical fires burning in the two braziers.


For a single moment, Bobby considered running. He could escape the men that held him easily by transforming himself to water and sliding out of their grips. In fact, he could simply deaden the pain by going to his ice form. But enduring the pain was part of the ritual. It was a test of his commitment, and he knew that he would be forever proven a coward if he ran away now.


But I'm not a coward, and I'm not a loser, he told himself with determination. That was, perhaps, the most fundamental thing he had learned in becoming a thief. And so he did nothing except cling more tightly to Remy, taking some comfort from his calm, solid presence.


The second time was worse than the first, it seemed, and left him dizzy from the pain. But after a moment, something cool and soothing touched him, and he realized that someone was putting salve of some kind over the fresh burns. Having seen Remy's mark, he knew that the entire thing was no larger than a quarter, but for now it felt like they had lit half of his head on fire.


The hands that had been holding his head released him, and Bobby cautiously opened his eyes. He was almost afraid to believe it was over.


"T'ink y' c'n stand?" Remy's grip eased on his arms. His voice was pitched so low that only Bobby could hear it, and filled with concern.


Bobby gingerly raised his head and met the other man's gaze. "Only if you don't mind me throwing up on your shoes."


Remy grinned. "Now I know y' all right. C'mon." He put his hands beneath Bobby's elbows and helped him to his feet.





Bobby slouched a bit further in his chair and uttered a soft sigh. Though the party that raged around him was entirely in his honor, he was not expected to do much beside sit in his place and receive the various guildmembers that came to introduce themselves or simply offer congratulations. It was a good thing, too. His head throbbed despite the thin layer of ice he'd conjured to cover the injured spot. Mostly, he just wanted to lay down and sleep, but it would be many hours before he could leave without insulting the Guild. For now, at least, he was relatively comfortable, and filled with a bizarre kind of excitement as the impact of what he had just done sank slowly in.


He noticed someone breaking away from the crowd to approach him, but didn't lift his head until the other's shadow had fallen across him. He found the third Master Thief standing before him, hand outstretched.


Bobby was sure his curiosity showed as he accepted the handshake. While watching the crowd, Bobby had seen Remy deliberately change course to avoid this man. Repeatedly. It wasn't from fear, Bobby was pretty sure, but there was definitely some bad blood there.


"Robert, it's a pleasure t' meet y'," the Master said with a surprisingly genuine smile.


"Bobby, please," he replied, even as his mind registered the man's accent. A number of details cascaded into place and he blinked in surprise. "Hey, you must be-"


"Jean Luc LeBeau." The man nodded with a sour smile. "I take it m' son didn' tell y'?"


"Uh, no. `Fraid not." Bobby looked out over the crowd, searching without success for a familiar lanky form. Jean Luc turned as well, but shrugged after a moment and turned back to Bobby.


"Dat's no surprise, I suppose." His expression was momentarily sad, but then firmed. "But it's f' de best."


"Kicking him out of his home?" Bobby was surprised by the rancor in his tone. He didn't know Jean Luc, and he had no real idea what had happened between father and son. But the lonely ache he'd seen occasionally in Remy's eyes made him angry, and here was one of the people who was most responsible for it.


Jean Luc's gaze narrowed, though his expression remained mild. He hooked a nearby chair with his foot and sat down, regarding Bobby thoughtfully. "Y' care about m' son." It was a statement, tinged with approval.


Bobby nodded. "He's a good friend."


Jean Luc pursed his lips. "Dat's good." Then he sighed. "Truth is, de Guild's too. . . small f' Remy. He'd be miserable in New Orleans." He shrugged uncomfortably. "Dere was no ot'er way t' set him free."


Bobby considered that and had to admit the point, as well as the obvious fact that Jean Luc loved his son. "I'm not sure Remy sees it that way, though," he answered.


Jean Luc gave him a smile filled with regret. "Probably not."





Remy resisted the impulse to look over to where his father and Bobby sat, talking animatedly. It's not his fault, he reminded himself sharply. Michael did dis. Despite the widening rift between himself and his father, Remy knew that Jean Luc would never have come for the ceremony had he know Remy was involved. It was too painful a reminder of his permanent banishment from the New Orleans Guild. Michael, of course, had jumped at the chance to rub Remy's nose in the fact, all the while pretending that it was a gesture of respect to invite the Master who had trained him. And since most of the guildmembers did not know enough about Remy to understand the subtle insult, he was forced to plaster a smile on his face and make like everything was fine. But inside, he was seething.


A hand closed on his shoulder, startling him. He stifled his reaction by sheer force of will. He hated crowds-they messed with his spatial sense to the point that he had to damp it down as far as possible to keep the constant, overwhelming motion from making him nauseous. He turned to find Michael standing behind him, a smug smile playing about his lips.


"Remy, congratulations." The words oozed sincerity, and Michael nodded toward Bobby. "He's quite a credit to you."


As much as Remy detested the man, he had to admire how well he was playing his advantage. There was absolutely nothing Remy could do except be gracious, knowing that Michael was well aware of how much he hated it. He could literally see the other man gloating.


"T'ank you. I'm sure he'll be an asset t' de Guild, too." Remy managed to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. Briefly, he wished he'd been born with Bobby's powers. Then he could just freeze a couple of synapses in Michael's head and drop him where he stood. He pushed the thought away. Killing Michael was the easy solution, and he did not ever intend to take another life just because it was convenient. The X-Men had had that much effect on him. His anger dimmed as he realized something: The reason he disliked Michael so much was because he was exactly the kind of man Remy could have become had he never met the X-Men.





"There he is." Bobby spotted a familiar thatch of red hair above the sea of bodies. Jean Luc craned his head to look, then nodded. Bobby watched his expression, wondering at the brief yearning he saw there.


"Do you want to talk to him?"


Jean Luc gave him an appraising look. "Y' very observant. Remy taught y' well." There was a note of pride in his voice, and Bobby couldn't help but blush a little. Something in him had warmed up to Jean Luc immediately, and he was beginning to feel like he'd just inherited a grandfather. He sat up slowly.


"We could wander over there."


"I don' t'ink Remy wants t' talk t' me."


Bobby grinned. "That's o.k. You'll be with me, and he can't avoid me. Not tonight, anyway. It would be rude."


Jean Luc stood, chuckling, and offered Bobby a hand. "Den I t'ink we should wander."





Remy spotted the two working their way toward him with a sense of dismay. What was Bobby doing? With his trademark naiveté, he was about to put Remy in an extremely uncomfortable situation. Remy met the young mutant's gaze, hoping to warn him off. He really did not want to talk to his father-- not now, not here, and especially not in front of Michael.


Bobby returned the stare diffidently and then, to Remy's immense shock, winked. A burst of outrage swept through him. Dat brat! He knows exactly what he's doing! But the anger was quickly followed by a wash of admiration. An' f' de first time, Bobby is managing t' manipulate me. Amazin' how far de boy's come.


He couldn't help but give Bobby an appreciative smile as the two walked up. But the smile died when he turned to Jean Luc.


"Father."


"Hello, Remy." They stared at each other in silence until Jean Luc turned to Michael, his expression one of carefully maintained neutrality. "I hope you'll excuse us. We have some catching up t' do."


Michael frowned at the abrupt dismissal, but since Jean Luc outranked him, there was little he could do. He inclined his head in the barest symbol of acquiescence, then turned away.


"Dat means you, too," Jean Luc told Bobby with a smile, and Remy had to wonder about the affection he saw reflected in his father's face. Bobby had this incredible gift for making people like him, and it seemed to have already taken hold of Jean Luc. Remy felt a stab of jealousy. It had been almost nine years since the last time he'd seen that simple affection directed at himself. Their relationship had become much too complicated for that.


Bobby did not seem the least disappointed to be sent away, and he left them with a cheery wave. Prob'ly t'inks he's helpin' me by makin' me talk to m' father. Remy snorted privately. He's prob'ly right.


Sighing, Remy turned to his father. "Been a long time, neh?"


Jean Luc nodded. "Too long." They stared at each other in uncomfortable silence until Jean Luc cleared his throat. "I've missed y', Remy."


Remy looked away, unable to meet his father's gaze. Been a long time since I had somebody pushin' me t' do what I needed to. But the tight knot in his stomach loosened a notch at his father's words, and he risked a glance toward the young man walking away from them. I'm beginning t' t'ink I'll always be grateful y' followed me t'rough de rain dat day, Bobby.





Part Twenty
[Lori McDonald]


Bobby walked down the sidewalk to Diedre's apartment, his heart pounding in his chest. Part of him still couldn't believe what happened the night before. The ceremony, the blood. The fact that he now had more ties to the Guild than to the X-Men. Not loving ties to be sure, but he could leave the X-Men if he chose. He could never leave the Guild.


It's worth it, he told himself again. For Diedre it is. She was worth it. He'd do a thousand things worse than be a thief to win her love.


Reaching the apartment building she lived in, he went inside, smiling at the guard by the desk. He'd come by enough that they all recognized him, but they didn't stop watching him. Not maliciously, though. Everyone seemed to know he was a tutor of some kind. No one apparently would ever dare to even start a rumour that he and Michael's wife were doing anything other than lessons.


*At least I've got that in my favour,* he thought ruefully. *Michael considers me to be such a weenie that I couldn't possibly try anything with his wife.*


Sighing, the young man got in the elevator and went up to the penthouse. Getting out into the foyer, he knocked on the door, and grinned as Frank opened it for him.


"Hiya."


Frank's expression was bleak. "She's upset," he said. "I'll go take a walk."


Worried, Bobby pushed past him as he went out the door. "Diedre?" It was cold in the apartment, a thin layer of ice on the windows. She IS upset, he thinks, and headed through the apartment, searching for her, before he finally reached the bedroom.


It was the second time Bobby had seen Diedre's bedroom, but he didn't get a good look last time and as he knocked and stepped into it, he saw that it was, like the rest of the apartment, Michael's room, not hers. The carpet was a thick, rich maroon, the walls paneled in heavy, dark oak. The bed was of the same oak, almost black, with silk bedsheets of a maroon the same shade as the floor. Dark paintings lined the walls, with photographs of Michael shaking hands with important people. If Diedre was in any, she stood in the background, demure.


Diedre herself sat on the edge of the bed, dressed in black with kohl around her eyes, looking like death in a room that could never suit her beauty.


"Diedre?" he whispered, and her name echoed in the cavernous room.


She looked up at him with eyes that had been crying. "Bobby?"


He nodded, coming over to sit beside her worriedly. "Yeah. You okay?"


To his horror, she flinched away. "Just go," she told him. "I don't want to see you again."





Delicately, Remy sipped at the cup of tea, fully aware that the porcelain cup itself was priceless, and supposed to be in a museum in Hong Kong. *Pro'ly tryin' t' piss me off. He know my feelin's ‘bout dat kind o' stealing.*


"Merci for de tea," he said, trying not to show the extreme care he used in placing the thousand year old cup back into its equally delicate saucer. "An' de meetin'."


Michael smiled regally, his eyes slightly narrowed as he regarded his unwelcome visitor. Remy had to fight down a surge of excitement. It was a very dangerous game he was playing and that always got his blood flowing. Especially this one. Michael wasn't a man to cross, not if one wanted to stay healthy. But then again, neither was Remy.


"You said you wanted to see me?" he asked smoothly.


Remy nodded evenly. "I did. I been talkin' wit' some friends an' dey tol' me ‘bout some int'restin' t'ings."


Michael's brows rose, his hands steepled before his face. "Really?"


"Really." Remy nerved himself to take another sip. "Dey hear ‘bout a job dat go down at de gold depository for de city. Int'restin' work."


The Guildmaster's head tilted to one side. "How so?"


He knew what he was talking about, they both knew that, but still the game of dance and insinuate went on. Remy shrugged. "Ten million in gold bars stolen. It not hit de papers yet, might not ever if we lucky." And if the million in bribes he'd scrounged up just that morning for everyone who knew held.


"Ten million. That's quite impressive." Michael downed his cup nonchalantly and poured himself some more, showing his indifference to the value of his belongings as he let the teapot he used bang against the rim of the cup. The word ‘clumsy' flitted through Remy's mind, but he didn't say it.


"Oui. Spec'lly de way de deal go down." He leaned back in his chair. "Somebody cut a hole in de side o' de wall into de vault."


"Oh?" Michael filled Remy's cup. "What did the thief use? Acetylenes? Lasers?"


Remy smiled grimly. "Mut'nt powers."


"Really?" Even if Remy hadn't known what really happened, Michael's comment sounded fake. But of course, that was also part of the game. Michael was challenging him, to see how he'd react, what mistake he would make. They'd been playing this game since Remy came to New York, long before Bobby stepped into the picture and became just the newest pawn. A comment here, a laugh at the wrong tone there. Cut, parry, dodge, swing. Verbal and mental fencing that held the fate of a city as the reward for the other for one wrong move. Desperately, the Cajun hoped he wasn't about to make that one. Michael had more experience than even he did, and a mind that encompassed a thousand possibilities all at once. He wanted the younger mutant dead, but so far, he didn't have the excuse he was digging for. Remy had to be careful to stop him without giving him one he couldn't get out of.


"Really," he replied again. "An Alpha class mut'ant cut int' de vault and stole ‘nough gold t' coat a street. Den jus' stroll out ‘gain, nice an' sweet. Just one, mind. He have took more if he had ot'ers t' help."


Michael smiled. As Guildmaster, he should condemn the thief, for disobeying Guild law about using powers on a job if he were a member, for trespassing if he weren't. If he did, Remy would have him, but he doubted he'd make such a huge mistake.


He didn't.


"How fascinating," he said, sipping his tea, his gaze never leaving the Cajun. "How can you be so sure it was a mutant?"


He gave a simple shrug. "‘Cause de one who did it makin' a statement. ‘Don' matter what y' secur'ty. I c'n get in. I c'n do it an' not get caught. I c'n use powers and get more faster dan wit'out.' Makin' lots a statements." He smiled at him. "‘Sides. I recognize de power signature."


Michael hesitated just the faintest fraction of an instant and Remy felt a surge of success. "Is that a fact?"


"Oui."


The Guildmaster nodded, finishing his cup and pouring himself a third. "Would you like some more?"


"Non. Merci."


"Very well." He finished pouring himself and sipped appreciatively. "It's a delicious brand, is it not? I have it shipped in from China."


"It an ex'llent brand. Where de location? I might get some m'self."


"I'll give you the address."


"Merci."


Michael sipped, looking at him with mild curiousity. "How did you come to recognize this power signature you speak of?"


It was part of the bribe. "I got friends in de gov'ment. De ones who invest'gate big crimes." Namely the kind that could be pinned on mutants. "Dey tell me ‘bout de heist an' ‘vite me t' come look." At a price.


"That was very nice of them."


"Oui. I t'ought so. So I go an' see de burn marks, an' I knew it be mut'nt work. Dey knew too."


And they were going to be searching New York for a mutant thief, he didn't say next. And they were good, really good, and they just might end up finding out about the existence of the Guild and how could you let this happen you're a stupid selfish arrogant bastard you idiot you're risking us all...


Remy smiled. "May'e I have more tea a'er all, n'est pas?"


"Of course." Michael's hand didn't tremble at all as he poured.


Bobby felt himself trembling. It was all for nothing. All the training, all the sacrifice, the mark on the back of his neck, the oaths to a Guild that went against everything he'd been raised to believe. All for nothing.


"W-what?" he gasped. "Y-you don't want to s-see me?" He could barely get the words out.


Diedre's eyes were filled with tears as she tore his heart out. "It's just... not a good idea."


"Not a good idea?" he parroted, feeling confused.


"No." She looked down, her long hair hiding her face. "You're in the Guild now."


*But I joined the Guild to be with you,* he wailed without speaking. "I - I - I - I ..."


Blue eyes he could die in looked up at him, miserable. "I - I love you," she admitted. His heart sang. "But you're Guild now. You have to obey the Guildmaster. Your own master can't protect you anymore. Not from the kind of politics Michael plays. If Michael even suspected how I felt, he'd kill you. And no one would be able to stop him." A tear he desperately wanted to brush away trickled down her cheek. "I couldn't bear that."


Bobby looked at her, the woman he loved, that he'd given up so much for. That he'd expanded his world so much for. Her smile wasn't all he'd gotten by falling in love with her that day in the library. He'd gotten Gambit's friendship, his own self respect...


An enemy who could have him destroyed without anyone who would say no, not even the X-Men who could never know about it.


He looked at Diedre, so pale, so thin, looking like a corpse in the black she was forced to wear. He looked at her and thought of her spending the rest of her life in black, dressed in mourning while she still lived to please Michael. Mourning the betrayal of husband to wife. She'd never wear yellow again, he knew. Never smile a smile that wasn't forced or had pain hidden behind it. She'd live her life as an ornament, until the lovelessness of it all destroyed her beauty and Michael replaced her with a younger, prettier wife. Bobby knew he'd wait for that moment. Take in the broken wreck who was left on the street and love her with all his soul. But because he loved her so much, he wouldn't let her go through with that without giving her a better option.


Swallowing, he took both her hands in his own. "Diedre, do you love Michael?"


Her mouth worked numbly. "I did," she said at last.


His grip tightened. "Do you now?"


Tears. "No."


His heart pounded in his chest. "And you love me."


Her eyes glistened with tears. "Yes, but-"


"Then run away with me," he whispered.





"Would you like a scone?" Michael asked.


"Mais oui."


Remy watched as Michael uncovered a basket and used a pair of silver tongs to slide a warm scone onto a plate. Taking it, he set it before himself and cut the scone in half, letting the steam rise up as he put a bit of butter on the edge of the plate and spread it over small pieces that he ate one at a time.


Michael watched him. "So who are these friends of yours?"


*So you c'n kill dem? I t'ink not. S'ides, I been wit' assassins long enough t' know dat no work in de end.* He laughed softly. "Jus' friends. De kind we all got."


"Of course." His smile was like ice. "What was their final conclusion?"


Cut off a bit of scone. Butter it. Eat. Repeat. "What I say b'fore. It an Alpha class energy discharger. One who know how t' disable de security systems first."


"Whoever it was must be very good, then."


*Fishin' f' compliments, Michael?" "Dey one a de best," he shrugged. "Sloppy though."


Michael's face tightened. "Oh?"


It was petty, but Remy grinned anyway. "Dey lef' signs dey been in de hall outside. No prints a not'ing. But de guard got a funny feelin' an' checked de vault. So dey knew hours ‘fore de should have. Dey already got all de places it could be sold or transported in de city staked out, an' are doin' spot checks on de highways. F' drunk drivers, dey say. But de lookin' f' de gold." *Which means de ten mill in gold you got sitting in one a y' warehouses ‘cause y' got cocky an' wan'ed t' keep it a while ain' goin' nowhere ‘till de heat dies down. Providin' dat li'l anonymous tip I sent t' de police ain't been checked out yet.*


"Whoever stole dat gold in a whole world a shit."


Michael smiled, a very dangerous smile shielded in civility. "From you personally?"


Here it was. The true dancing. "Oui, from me," Remy replied, nibbling on his scone, his eyes never leaving his opponent. "De mu'ant who did dis Guild trained. An' if he pull dis off an' get ‘way wit' it, ain' not'ing stoppin' de ot'er t'ieves from usin' deir powers on jobs too. His ident'ty not have t' come out. Jus' ‘nough f' e'eryone t' know it done. Dat take de whole ball game onto a whole new level. Gonna get a lotta people ver' dead." He shrugged. "An' a few ver' rich."


Michael smiled. "How noble of you. I wish you the best of luck."


Remy grinned at him. "I make m' own luck." And with any, the FBI already had the gold back, and an arrest warrant for Michael. Not as the Guildmaster. There were no records tying him to that, Remy had made sure of that point before he fingered him. Just as a single mutant thief who thought he got lucky but instead got stupid. Michael could evade the Feds, he'd done it before, but thanks to Remy's confession that he was going to track the thief, he wanted him dead. He couldn't just outright kill him, though, not without showing everyone he was the one to break Guild law, but he would be focused on finding an excuse to bring him down. Hopefully, just long enough for the Feds to finish their work. It was the only reason the Cajun had gambled with his own life on the line.


Remy finished his scone and pushed his chair back. "Well, I'm done. You?"


"Yes. Thanks for the company."


"Don' mention it."





Diedre stared at him. "Run away with you?" she gasped. "Where?"


Bobby shrugged. "Anywhere. I just want to be with you."


Her eyes were huge. "But - Michael will find us!"


"So? I've got friends who can protect us." If the X-Men couldn't, then no one could. He'd tell them everything, take all the blame. He didn't care what it cost him so long as it got Diedre out of the hellish existence she'd been living in. He dropped to one knee before her, still holding her hands. "Please, Diedre. Come with me. I love you."


She swallowed, her hands trembling like fragile birds in his. "I - I... I'm afraid."


"Don't be. Please, don't be. You'll be safe, I swear it."


Tears glistened in her eyes. "No, I don't think I will be." She sniffed. "But a lifetime in danger with you is better than one safe here."


His heart soared, his whole body ringing until he thought he'd actually faint with relief. "You'll come?" he squeaked.


"Yes," she nodded, sobbing with laughter. "I'll come."


He crushed her to him, his lips locked against hers.


It had been worth it after all.


He finally came up for air after an endless time in the kiss, his lips pressed against her achingly soft ones, her perfume in his nostrils, her ice on his skin. "I love you," he whispered.


"I know," she smiled and pulled away. "I... I need to pack."


"Just take what you need," Bobby told her, leaping for the closet to search for a suitcase. He felt like he could fly.


"I only want to get out of this," she told him and he turned, curious, before his jaw dropped to the ground, his mouth working soundlessly as Diedre, standing behind an ornately decorated silk screen, slipped off her black dress, her silhouette reaching for a pale yellow one hidden in one of her open drawers.


"You want me to leave?" he managed far too late.


"No," she said shyly. "You can stay."


He nodded, his eyes never leaving her as she slipped on the yellow sundress he'd bought her and washed the kohl from her eyes. Even in shadow, he'd never imagined anyone could be so beautiful and the room's temperature dropped in response to his longing. Diedre giggled playfully and swept her jewelry box into the suitcase, along with a few books and undergarments. "That's all I need. Let's go."


Taking her hand with a grin he thought would never leave his face, Bobby led her out of the bedroom towards the front door, just in time to feel it fade away as the door opened and Michael stepped inside.





Part Twenty One
[Valerie Jones]


Time froze. Bobby stared at Michael in mute horror. He was suddenly very aware of Diedre's hand clasped in his own, and even as that endless second ticked by, he knew that there was no way for Michael to mistake what was happening between them. He saw the understanding flicker in Michael's eyes, and then the moment shattered as Michael's lips curved in a cold smile.


"It was you." Bobby could almost see the pieces falling into place in his mind.


Unconsciously, Bobby drew Diedre behind himself, shielding her. He raised his chin slightly and said nothing. There was no defense, and he doubted very seriously his ability to bluff his way out of the situation. His nerves screamed at him to react--to go ice, to attack, to run--anything but to simply stand there. But Remy had trained him mercilessly until he really understood it, that his mind was his first weapon. He didn't know anything about Michael's powers. He really needed to see what the other mutant could do before he reacted.


Michael's smile had not changed. "And here I thought Remy was being unusually discrete."


Several things came together in Bobby's mind. Michael had known--or at least suspected--that Diedre was involved with someone and he hadn't done anything. Why? Because he thought it was Gambit. Which meant that he had been waiting for an opportune time to expose the affair. And that would have been all the excuse he needed to kill Remy. As a Guildmember, even Bobby couldn't have done anything to stop him.


Bobby's mind was whirling, but he felt like he'd latched on to something to use against Michael in this deadly game. "No," he answered Michael, "Remy doesn't even know." He tightened his grip on Diedre's hand. Ignorance and innocence were equivalent under Guild law. Remy had risked his life as well as his reputation in bringing Bobby into the thieves world. The least Bobby could do was protect him from the one risk he actually hadn't known about.


"Noble." Michael cocked his head. "But not very useful." Bobby tensed as the other man reached into his coat, but all he retrieved was a cellular phone. "Perhaps I should simply ask him what he knows." He began to dial a number into the phone.


Bobby reacted almost instantly as the chain of logic fell into place in his head. An icy tentacle reached out and knocked the phone from Michael's hand. It hit the hardwood floor with a thud and skidded across the room. Bobby stared at Michael, heart pounding. There was no way Remy would stand by and let Michael kill him, Guild law or no. Not when it was solely a matter of political maneuvering. He knew Remy that well now. But even if Remy defeated Michael, he would be guilty of breaking Guild law and the Guild would crucify him for it. The only way to protect Remy was to keep him out of it entirely. But that meant that Bobby was on his own against a man that even Gambit walked very carefully around.


Michael's eyes narrowed to slits. "Very well. You and the slut can die together. I'll just have to wait until later to deal with Remy."


Bobby transitioned to his ice form as something dark but translucent took shape around Michael. It reminded Bobby of a psionic exoskeleton, save that it resembled a spider rather than a man. The long legs were folded tightly around Michael, but Bobby estimated that they would have at least an eight foot reach. In the confines of the foyer, that eliminated every avenue of escape except to retreat back into the hall, which would be suicidal.


Concentrating, Bobby drew moisture from the air in a rush. Walls of ice exploded from the ground all around him, encasing himself and Diedre in a fortress of ice. He saw little opportunity except to stand his ground and try to draw Michael out. A small part of his brain whispered that he ought to just freeze Michael where he stood, but even becoming a thief hadn't turned Bobby into a killer. He was more powerful than Michael probably suspected, and that, along with some of his X-Men experience and a great heaping dollop of luck, might get them through this unharmed.


One of the spidery legs flashed toward Bobby. The extended tip gained opacity as it neared, becoming a dark, smoky color. It struck the outer ice shield with a dull scraping sound, scattering ice chips in a small shower. It was an exploratory strike, Bobby knew, and gave him little idea of what Michael could really do. But it did give him some insight into what type of attack to expect. He didn't see any signs of telepathic, telekinetic, or other kinds of manipulatory powers. Michael appeared to have a purely physical mutation.


*Which means that if I can buy myself some distance, I can probably get a little time to think.* Twin columns rose from the top of the ice fortress, their tops jagged.


"Hang on," he told Diedre, who only tightened her grip on him. He didn't dare turn to look at her. Under his direction, the ice pylons slammed into the ceiling.


Bobby had intended to rip a hole straight through to the roof, but the structure above them shuddered under his assault and held. Pieces of plaster rained down from the ceiling as Michael grinned.


"Reinforced steel and concrete." He lashed out with one of his skeletal arms, this time gouging a deep trench in the ice that surrounded Bobby and Diedre. "Even a bomb blast won't go through that."


Bobby glanced around in dismay. *Whole penthouse is the same, no doubt, which means I'll have to use one of the doors. Or windows. And even those'll be reinforced.* Experimentally, Bobby created a flight of ice arrows and sent them shooting toward Michael. He was not surprised when they shattered against the exoskeleton, which darkened dramatically in the area where they struck.


Michael drew back on of the spidery legs to strike, then paused as Diedre ducked around Bobby. "Michael! Stop this!" Her voice was pleading rather than commanding as she held her arms out toward him. "Please! You don't love me. Just let me go."


Bobby held his breath, momentarily forgotten as the two stared at each other. "I don't think so, Didi," Michael told her, his tone reproving. "After all the effort I put into you, all the gifts I gave you. . . and you couldn't even reel me in the right fish."


Bobby's heart went cold. Was that all she'd ever been to Michael? A tool aimed directly at bringing Remy down? He was so stunned by the other man's cruelty that for a split second he didn't register the translucent leg that shot toward Diedre, its tip darkening to an inky black. But then adrenaline poured through him as he grabbed Diedre and swung her bodily around, placing himself between her and the attack. He heard the sound of cracking ice as the heavy barriers he'd erected collapsed, but before he could build new ones, he felt the skeletal arm slam into him from behind. He staggered as Diedre screamed, and he looked down in horror to see the black tip of Michael's exoskeleton emerging from his own shattered chest to impale Diedre just above the left breast. She went limp in his arms, her blood welling from the wound in a dark torrent as Michael pulled back.


"Noooooooo!" The temperature plummeted as Bobby turned to face Michael. He held Diedre cradled against him, her blood freezing as it touched his icy skin. Without further thought, he sent a wave of ice crashing toward her killer.





Remy paused in the act of lighting a cigarette as the air around him turned suddenly chill. He was seated on one of the many benches that lined the street outside Michael's apartment building, waiting for the man to emerge. It had seemed wise to keep an eye on the Guildmaster until the F.B.I caught up with him, but as a woman walking past suddenly shivered and glanced around in surprise, he found every danger sense he possessed coming alive.


Remy came to his feet, eyes scanning the street for signs of trouble. The temperature drop felt an awful lot like Iceman's handiwork, but he didn't see any sign of the young mutant.


*Please tell me dis ain' some kind o' random mutant t'ing,* he muttered silently. *I don' have time f' X-Men t'ings right now.*


Up and down the street, everything seemed normal. Remy raised his eyes, scanning the buildings. He turned a full circle, wishing that the crowds moving on the street didn't play such havoc with his kinesthetic sense. Then the sound of shattering glass brought his attention back to Michael's apartment building. One of the windows in the penthouse exploded outward, the shards of glass falling in a sparkling shower in the sunlight. But it was the jagged wave of ice that poured from the broken window that robbed Remy of breath.


*Bobby, y' idiot!* Remy raced across the street, drawing cards as he went.





The ice wave bowled Michael over, carrying him along as it crashed through the wall of the foyer and into the formal dining room beyond. Under Bobby's direction, it slammed into the far wall with enough force to make the entire building shudder. The picture window that overlooked the New York skyline shattered, though the reinforced steel frame only bent under the onslaught. Michael seemed unaffected. The exoskeleton was nearly black around him, and it expanded sharply, cracking the ice that engulfed him. He pulled himself out of the ice with those spider-like arms and began to advance on Bobby.


Bobby saw him coming, but couldn't move. His attention was fixed on the pale face of the woman in his arms. She was still alive, though barely, her breath bubbling weakly through her pink lips. >From the amount of blood, Bobby could only guess that Michael had hit her heart. The dark red stain covered her yellow dress, once again clothing her in Michael's awful colors.


"Shhh. It's all right. You're going to be all right," he whispered to her through the tears that froze on his cheeks. His mind was a whirlwind of horror and rage, and the pain in his chest had nothing to do with the gaping hole in his ice body. He could barely breathe he was so terrified-not of Michael, but at the knowledge that he was watching the woman he loved die.


Michael came closer, the spider legs assisting him as he walked across the uneven floor of ice. Bobby looked up at him, his agony becoming cold, hard rage. His eyes narrowed as the local temperature plummeted. Not just to zero or a little below, as had once been the limit of his abilities. In less than a second, the air immediately surrounding them liquefied as the temperature dropped below the vaporization threshold. The liquid air splashed down around them, coating all three mutants, and spilling out across the floor into the warm air beyond the boundary of Bobby's control. The rapid re-expansion of the liquid oxygen and nitrogen resulted in an explosion of gases that shattered the quick-frozen floor. Michael disappeared in a cloud of vapors, plummeting down into the level below.


Bobby held himself and Diedre up on a shelf of ice. Her delicate features were now coated in a thin film of ice, her blood turned to ruby crystals where it trailed down the length of her arm to dangle like gems from her fingertips.


Bobby's breath caught in his throat. The sudden freezing hadn't killed her. Instead, it had awakened her powers. He could feel her mutant power, so much like his own. It brushed feather-soft across his mind as another force extended itself into the ice, searching for anchorage.


*That's it!* Elation swept through him. "Diedre, that's it! Go into the ice! You can do it, my love." He closed his eyes, listening with his mutant power for the tendrils of her power that sank themselves into the surrounding ice. Bobby followed her with his senses, searching for any way to help her. Her body was frozen, the blood that remained in her veins trapped there by the cold. Her powers protected her--keeping her alive even as her body became something that did not live in the conventional sense. Bobby knew that transition intimately. Every time he went ice he traded his physical life--that sustained by the function of a living organism-- for a life sustained entirely by his mutant powers. Diedre couldn't become ice. Her powers just weren't that strong. But so long as she remained in the cocoon of bitter cold that Bobby had created, she would continue to live in a kind of altered state. And that was enough to make Bobby's heart soar.


"Bobby! Bobby! Are y' o.k.?"


Remy's voice, desperately worried, startled Bobby out of his reflection. He looked up to see the Cajun thief crouched at the edge of the sphere of cold, his bo staff in one hand and a set of cards splayed in the other.


"What happened?" he demanded as soon as Bobby raised his head. "Where's Michael?"


"Down there." Bobby nodded toward the gaping hole in the floor, surprised by how calm his voice sounded. "I killed him."


Remy arched an eyebrow at the pronouncement, but the worry in his eyes was fading. "Couldn' a happened t' a nicer guy." His gaze dropped to Diedre. "Is she--?"


"No." Bobby didn't know whether to be pleased or insulted that Remy didn't show the least bit of surprise that he was holding the Guildmaster's wife cradled in his arms. "She's in a kind of suspended animation. I've dropped the temperature far enough that it's boosting her powers."


The rippling edge of the cold sphere was only a few inches from the end of Remy's nose. He frowned, studying it. "How cold?" He seemed oddly analytical, and a prickling sense of warning began to crawl across the back of Bobby's neck.


"The air's liquid, if that tells you anything." Remy's gaze snapped to his at the sharp comment, and Bobby knew for certain that something was wrong.


Remy gave the sphere another, more respectful, inspection and shifted slightly away. "Can y' do anyt'ing else while y' maintainin' dat t'ing?"


Bobby shook his head slowly. The intense concentration required to keep the temperature that low, combined with not freezing the rest of the building and all of the innocent people currently in it, was already beginning to take its toll.


Remy sighed and rose to his feet. "Dat's too bad." His voice, and his expression, were grim.


Bobby was about to ask him why when he saw a long black leg rise out of the hole in the floor, followed quickly by another. His stomach twisted savagely. "But--" He looked up at Remy. "I poured liquid air on him! He couldn't have survive that!"


Remy moved away from Bobby, his attention focused on the multiple legs now scrabbling for purchase on the jagged edge of the penthouse floor. "I've heard say dat not'ing can get t'rough Michael's exoskeleton, if he don' wan' it to." The cards in his hand flared to life, becoming brilliant streaks of fire as he threw.


"Guess we gon' find out."





Part Twenty Two
[Lori McDonald]


As a street smart punk growing up in the gutters of New Orleans, Remy LeBeau had learned that if you killed, it came back at you. You got a reputation. The law, the tougher punks, the corpse's friends... they'd all be after you, and the killing would never stop.


As a thief in the New Orleans guild, he was taught to use discretion. If you had no choice but to kill, do so quietly Cover your tracks, make it look like an accident. Don't get caught and don't start wars.


While with the X-Men, Gambit was drilled with the idea that there is no excuse for murder. No one, regardless of who they are, ever deserved to die, and to kill was the most reprehensible of acts.


Remy knew all these things. He believed.


But still the cards he threw at Michael were meant to slaughter.


A trio of energized playing cards exploded against the spider legs that were scrabbling to pull their owner out of the hole in the floor. They withstood the triple explosions, but his next cards blasted into the flooring they held onto. They vanished into the lower floor again with a crash as Remy darted across the uneven floor to a column that had once supported the roof, but now listed weakly over the gap in the floor.


His hands touched marble and the power spread. A tingle from his chest down his arms, pumping into the stone with a pink glow that hummed and growled and screamed as he charged the column to breaking. Leaning his weight against it, he pushed and dove the other way.


"Brace y'self!" he yelled to Bobby.


The explosion rocked the building. A detonation equivalent to a thousand sticks of dynamite blew out all the windows on the floor below the penthouse, sending glass and rubble out twenty feet and more into midair to rain on the street below. Dust blasted everywhere, coating everything as the structure creaked and whined, then collapsed downward, falling to crush the floor beneath. A hundred tons of reinforced concrete and steel, vaporized in the explosion, erupted from the cracks in the dying building along with a wail of released energy.


Coughing, Remy raised his head to see he was still alive. Bobby, still crouched in his bubble of frozen air, whispering icy reassurances to his beloved as he tried to coax life back into her frozen form. The building creaked around them, but it held. They were lucky it hadn't all collapsed from what he did.


Didi Tyre. Didi. Diedre. How the hell could he have been so stupid? Remy coughed and tossed the dust and plaster out of his hair. Why didn't Bobby wait fourty eight hours? Then Michael would have been in jail and he could have loved her freely. Now... Himself, he'd always avoided Didi Tyre. Young, beautiful, trapped. Everything he'd always wanted to fall for and save, conveniently married by Michael a few months after he arrived in New York. Sometimes, watching her, he'd wondered how much of a trap she was, laid for a Master Thief who could only be legitimately killed for a crime like stealing another man's wife. Briefly, he wondered if he would have stepped into that lovely trap if Rogue hadn't been around to steal his heart instead. Now, Bobby was the one caught.


"How she doin'?"


Bobby looked up. "Alive. Michael?"


"Don' know."


"After that??"


He grinned. "Don' know," he repeated and closed his eyes, concentrating.


Dust, falling from the ceiling; bits of plaster tumbling. The gentle fall of shattered crystal from what used to be a china cabinet, the spark of electricity threatening to become fire in the devastated walls. The creak of the ice pillars Bobby used to keep the roof from falling on them all. People, screaming and yelling outside, running away, or running to. Sirens. A butterfly, too stupid or brave not to want to dare the dust laden air, alit quivering on a strut of metal just outside. His own heart, beating in his chest, the creak of ice around Bobby and Diedre. The spider leg coming straight for him.


Remy dodged.


Pain tore along his arm and then he was rolling across the broken floor, wishing he was wearing his armour as glass and stone cut into his back and arms and Michael's exoskeleton legs tore up the floor right before his face. Coming to the end of his reach before he came to the end of the room, Remy sprang to his feet, whirling to face his enemy.


Michael glared at him from across the devestated penthouse, his spider legs spread wide and his body encased in blackness that flickered with red. Ignoring the blood that poured down his arm even though he knew he had to do something about it soon, the Cajun grinned.


"Red, neh? Guess dat means I hurt you, n'est pas?"


Michael didn't answer, breathing deeply, his exoskeleton legs moving around him randomly.


Maybe not. Remy tensed as his motion power picked up how the legs were moving and where they'd be. He threw himself bodily to the side as four of the six legs struck the ground behind the Guildmaster, propelling him forward with the last two outstretched. His hand finding a piece of rubble, Remy charged it and threw it at the man's head. It exploded and Michael yelled.


"That's your last shot, Cajun!"


If he didn't get to where he had more room, it would be. And take Michael with him. Remy saw Bobby bowed over Diedre, all his concentration focused on the frozen bubble that kept her alive. Michael couldn't touch him. Even his exoskeleton would suffer in that kind of cold, but if they kept fighting indoors, the whole building would collapse.


Michael's arms pulled back to his body, preparing for another attack. Remy didn't give him the time. He charged and threw a dozen cards, blinding the man as he reeled from the force if not from pain, and Remy threw himself at him, slamming them both backwards through the broken window towards the street far below.





Bobby barely saw the battle, concentrating on Diedre. "Come on," he begged. "Come on..." She was unresponsive, her skin frozen, her blood ice, but still he could feel her life slipping away. "Please, don't leave me!"


Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his master charge Michael, sending them both through the window. "Gambit!" he yelled, but he couldn't go to his side where he belonged. If he left Diedre, he knew, she'd die.


"Why?" he moaned. "I wanted to keep you clear of all of this!"


Unbidden, the Cajun's words echoed through his mind, repeating words he'd spoken from a rooftop while Bobby stood below and they shared a beer and some misery.


"Love wit' all y' heart, protect y' friends and fam'ly and s'vive no matter what, so long as de first two are kept safe."


So long as...


Bobby closed his eyes. "Oh, God, Remy, no..." Still, he couldn't help him, and he knew the Cajun knew it too.


Thank you, he thought, barely a whisper. Thank you...





Michael bellowed at him as they plunged out the window and tumbled out of control towards the pavement far below. "You're insane!"


"Not a' tall, mon ami," Remy grinned, taking advantage of Michael's momentary panic. His legs were outstretched, but he didn't attack with them, overwhelmed by the sudden adrenaline surge. Remy kicked away from him, freefalling apart as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small device, no more than a small grappling hook attached to a box with a strap over it that his hand fit into and around. Raising it over his head, he pressed the button on the top and the hook fired, arcing up and around one of the gargoyles that adorned the sides of the building, trailing behind it a thin, file, high tensile wire cord more than strong enough to support the weight of a full grown man.


The hook caught and he was yanked to a halt, almost feeling that his arm was going to be pulled out of its socket by the sudden move. He swung towards the building, landing feet first, and looked down towards Michael.


The Guildmaster rolled over, legs flashing towards the building, and concrete tore with a scream as he was dragged by momentum down the side of the wall, legs digging deep trenches into the material. A continuous screech like nails down a blackboard sounded as his descent slowed, then stopped. He looked around, then hopped down the last ten or so feet to the rubble strewn pavement.


Merde, Remy thought, seeing his stand upright and brush the dust off his suit. He couldn't just stay up here. If he did, there would be nothing stopping him from going inside and trying to kill Bobby and Diedre again. Or from getting away. If he did now, he'd come back later to finish what he started. Michael was a possessive man, and regardless of his feelings for his wife, he'd be sworn to kill the man who tried to steal her from him. For Bobby's sake, he had to end it now.


Remy began to lower himself on the line, Michael standing below and smirking. He was only twenty feet above the reaching legs when he began swinging, and finally kicked away from the building and the line entirely. Flipping over in midair, he landed lightly on top of a streetlamp that had somehow survived the falling rubble from above. From there, he looked down at his adversary.


"Dere are dose who say dat a man who kill his own wife ain't no man."


Michael's chin lifted defiantly. "She betrayed me."


Remy grinned. "Wasn' dat de whole point? Or you just mad her tastes run t' blondes?"


Michael leaped at him, springing on four legs with two outstretched, just like before. Remy flipped over his head, reaching into his coat for his bo staff and telescoping it to full length as he did so. Rolling over so he'd land on his feet, he hit the man squarely on the side of the head, only to see the adamantium of it richochet off the exoskeleton. It was still red streaked from the earlier explosions, but too strong yet for him to break through. He cursed silently.


"You're a stupid man, Michael," Remy said as Michael slowly picked himself up from the ground, not sure if he were injured enough to make an attack under these conditions likely to work. "You use y' powers when y' shouldn', where y' shouldn'. How y' shouldn'. How long you honestly t'ink de gov'ment let mutant thieves run loose?"


"They have no powers," Michael laughed. "They can't stop any of us, and I will use what's mine."


"Dat's jus' ‘bout de stupidest t'ing I ever heard." The two men circled each other. "Power ain' ‘bout bein' able to pull vault doors apart. ‘Bout keepin' y' people alive."


Michael sneered. "Like you would know. You have no people."


"Got friends, got fam'ly. And I do anyt'ing I have t' t' keep dem safe. Only I ain't compromisin' deir honour f' riches."


The older man smiled. "Then you'll die a very poor man."


A leg lashed out. Instinctively, Remy slammed at it with his bo staff, only to feel the leg cut through the adamantium and slash through his side, only his reflexes keeping it from hitting him dead centre. Rolling to his feet, he backed up rapidly, getting distance between himself and his enemy while he assessed his injuries. Blood was pouring down his side, the white of bone showing where a rib had been sliced in half and was jutting out of the wound. His bo staff was missing the top ten inches, sheered clean through. Adamantium? He strong ‘nought t' cut adamantium?? Bleeding, clutching his side and feeling faint, he watched Michael laugh.





Gently, Bobby stroked Diedre's cheek. "Come on, Diedre, don't give up."


She was growing weaker, her flesh dying in spite of his best attempts, her breath weakening. Already his bubble had frozen through the building that held it up, shattering whatever it touched, and he'd been forced to build supports of ice, spearing through the building and deep into the ground. It groaned around the freezing shafts, cracking, but he kept filling those cracks, spreading his roots deeper, farther.


Diedre shuddered. "Diedre!" he cried. "Stay with me! Don't die!" Still, she weakened before him.


What if she were like me? he thought suddenly.


Diedre's powers were based on cold, just like his. They thrived on it, but she was only beta class. She didn't have the resources in her to do what he did. To become ice herself. But, perhaps, he could MAKE her into ice, change her where she couldn't change herself, and, once she was ice, reform her body into one that didn't have great wounds in its breast.


Bobby bent his head, concentrating as he never had before, pushing his powers farther than the X-Men ever wanted him to, trusting to his skill beyond all else as Remy taught him as he carefully, gently, lovingly, changed everything about his beloved that was flesh, all into a new form of life.





"MOVE! MOVE! RED ALERT! GET THE LEAD OUT, PEOPLE!"


Cyclops sprinted down the hall to the Blackbird hangar, surrounded by other members of the team. Storm, Bishop, Phoenix, Sam, Beast.


Even without Cerebro's monitors, they'd know something was happening in New York between Gambit and an unidentified mutant. The fight was right on CNN, after all.


What is he doing?? he thought to himself. Has he gone insane?? He'd seen enough battles to be able to recognize when one was to the death. Remy was out to kill if he could.


"This is not the way the X-Men operate," he growled as he pulled himself into the ship and made his way to the cockpit. Gambit had no excuse for such a fight. And what he did to that building! Who knew how many people could have been killed.


Jean slipped into the copilot seat. "I can't reach Remy telepathically," she told him. "He's too busy fighting and I don't want to distract him."


Cyclops started flipping switches, warming the bird up. "He intends to kill that man, doesn't he?"


She sighed. "Yes. That much I can pick up."


"Then," Cyclops stated as he started the Blackbird out of the hangar, lifting off the ground and arching out over the ocean and into the sky. "It's up to us to stop him."





Don' pass out... wha'e'er y do, don' pass out.


Reeling, Remy blinked through the dizziness, looking at Michael as the Guildmaster approached. Stepping back, he twirled his shortened bo staff into a ready position warily. Frowning, Michael hesitated, not quite willing to commit himself to a full out attack if the Cajun wasn't as hurt as he looked.


Remy straightened up, snapping his arm that had been holding his wound downwards, flicking blood from his fingers nonchalantly as he grinned. "Almos' got me dere."


Michael smirked. "I'll have to be quicker next time then."


Still smiling, the Cajun circled with him, fighting not to stumble. "Wit' all dese witnesses?" he gestured at the people around the rubble strewn street on the sidewalk or in their cars, staring at the two mutants in terror. Distant sirens sounded as well.


"Well, when I'm done with you, I'll just have to make sure that none of them are around to say anything."


Remy went white. "You wouldn'..."


It might have been a bluff. It might have been true. But either way, the statement had its effect. Michael lunged, legs flashing, and one of them imbedded itself in Remy's leg, the other through his stomach and out his back.


Gambit couldn't even scream. Through the agony, he felt Michael lift him off the ground, grinning. "You thought you could take what's mine?" he whispered to him. "I don't care WHO you are. You're nothing but a corpse now."


Gasping, Remy vomited blood, watching through hazing eyes as it impacted on Michael's shield, though one drop fell through a crack in his armour to land on his forehead instead. Gambit grinned.


"So are you, homme."


Quickly, he braced one hand on Michael's exoskeleton, the other reaching into his coat. Not for a card. They would explode outside the shield, killing their owner and not their target. He needed something smaller. Pulling out his gun, he pushed the nozzle against the tiny gap and pulled the trigger.


The bullet was just small enough to fit.





Confused, Diedre opened her eyes. "Bobby?" she whispered.


Immediately, an icy form smiled down at her, frozen water flowing flawlessly to mimic the movement. "How are you feeling?"


Diedre blinked, feeling... strange. "I-I don't know. What happened?"


He hugged her gently, his ice as soft to her as a baby's skin. "Michael stabbed you."


Her eyes widened. "What happened to him?"


"Gambit's fighting him."


Hearing the grief in his voice, for a mentor he couldn't help, Diedre lifted her hand to touch his cheek and gasped as she saw it was a semi translucent blue, frozen bubbles trapped inside obscuring her view of the remains of the penthouse beyond. "What??" She couldn't get the word out. They were melded together, their torsos and legs merged into one mass, her head affixed to his shoulder as he held her, only that one arm free.


Any icy tear slipped down Bobby's cheek. "I saved you. I turned you to ice, you're tied into my body right now." He mimicked a deep breath. "I love you so much, Diedre."


Frozen, she smiled back at him, content, her dreams fulfilled. "I love you too, Bobby."





Gasping, trying not to fall, Remy stared down at the body. Michael's exoskeleton had vanished at his death and he looked almost surprised at the small neat hole that had appeared between his eyes.


Leaning on his staff, hearing the not unexpected roar of the Blackbird approaching, he raised the trembling arm that held the gun and emptied the clip into Michael's body. He wasn't coming back to haunt any of them.


A cold breeze touched his cheek and his gaze turned up towards the frosted penthouse. "Bobby..." Man had his woman, paid his price and won her. Saved her. Remy smiled, his knees buckling and an involuntary cry coming from him at the pain of it. The cool blood that streaked his staff pressed into his cheek as he rested against it, trying to breathe though his blood was pouring out of him. It was worth it though, in spite of the hell his indiscretion would cause the Guild, and what it looked like it would cost him as well. Finally, a man and a woman could love one another and have that love survive. For that, he'd pay any price.


The Blackbird roared overhead as he tumbled over onto his side, joining his enemy in, if not the same depths of darkness, then a darkness that might still lead to it eventually.





Part Twenty Three
[Valerie Jones]


Bobby heard the distinctive whine of the Blackbird engines with a sense of overwhelming relief. The X-Men would be able to help Remy. Michael couldn't possibly defeat them all. He desperately wished that he could see what was going on outside the destroyed apartment building, but all of his energy was tied up in maintaining the sphere of cold and the ice woman who lay content in his arms. What little attention he could spare from those was maintaining the supports that kept the building from collapsing on top of them. As much as Bobby wanted to go to his master, he knew he had to finish what he'd begun with Diedre first.


Closing his eyes, he concentrated on Diedre. He stretched his awareness back into the ice that formed their joined body, and began the painstaking process of changing her back into living flesh.





Cyclops had the ramp down before the Blackbird's weight had completely settled on its landing gear. He felt stunned as he followed the rest of his team out of the aircraft. This couldn't be happening. He had always maintained that Gambit's recklessness would eventually get him killed, but to see it. . .


Scott stared at the scene in the street, absorbing it. The air was filled with a smoky haze-partly from the small fires that dotted the street and partly from the fine dust that continued to fall from the building that Gambit had blown up. The street was covered in debris. The weakened sunlight shimmered in the glass fragments that littered the ground, and the live wires from a fallen electric pole


hissed and sparked. The ruined building loomed over the rest of the destruction, it's top floors listing to one side and threatening to fall. Long fingers of ice were wrapped around the top of the building, holding the upper floors in their precarious position, and he realized with dismay that Iceman had to be inside somewhere.


The man that Gambit had been fighting lay on the street on his back in a spreading pool of blood. His eyes were open, his expression oddly surprised. The bullet hole in his forehead seemed very small, and only a trickle of blood ran from it. In contrast, his chest was a single huge red stain against the white suit shirt. Scott could see the holes in the cloth, and, almost unwillingly, he counted them. Eight. Gambit was lying on his side a short ways away, the handgun still loosely clasped in his fingers. The slide was locked back, indicating that the weapon was empty. He, too, was surrounded by a dark stain of blood.


*Scott, he's still alive.*


The moment of observation shattered as Scott forced himself into motion. Jean and Hank were already kneeling at Gambit's side, examining him. Storm stood behind them, her expression filled with fear, and Scott touched her elbow lightly as he stepped up beside her.


"Storm, take Cannonball with you and go find Bobby." He indicated the ice-capped building. "Make sure he's all right."


Storm's gaze lingered on Gambit's still form for a moment before nodding. "Of course." She turned, gesturing to Sam, and the two of them rose into the air. Scott tracked their progress for a moment before turning back to the two crouched over the injured X-Man.


"Quickly, Jean, let's get him into the Blackbird." Hank said, standing as Jean lifted Gambit in a telekinetic bubble. Together they moved toward the airplane.


Scott knew he couldn't help them, so he stayed where he was and swept his gaze once more around the street. How could this have happened? Something silver caught his eye and he stooped to retrieve it. After a moment, he recognized the cylinder as a piece of Gambit's staff, and, scanning the area, he spied the rest of it. He recovered the second half and held the pieces in his hands, frowning. At least Bobby had had the sense to use his powers to protect people from the falling building, but what could have set this conflict off in the first place?


The growing wails of the approaching emergency vehicles was his only answer, and he knew they were running out of time. They needed to collect Bobby and get out of there, fast. He was reaching for his comm badge to warn Storm when she re-emerged from the shattered upper floors. Cannonball darted out behind her, followed by Iceman. To Scott's surprise, a woman clung to the ice slide behind Bobby as he arced toward the Blackbird, and as they touched down, he realized that her dress was also stained with blood though she didn't appear to be injured.


Bobby's slide deposited himself and the woman on the street next to the Blackbird. Even from the short distance, Scott could see the sick fear in his face.


"Where's Remy?!" he demanded stridently as he crossed the distance to where Scott stood. His gaze flicked between the body of the dead man and the second blood stain on the concrete. "What happened? Is he all right?!"


"He's alive, though that's about all," Scott replied tersely. He was suddenly furious that any of his team could have done something so stupid and possibly gotten themselves killed, not to mention the dead man lying in the street. . . "What in the world happened here, Bobby?" he demanded angrily.


Bobby shook his head. He seemed like he was about to say something when his attention was distracted by the woman. She had moved several paces away, and was standing beside the dead man, staring down at him, her face pained. After a moment, she dropped slowly to her knees and bowed her head over him, though she didn't touch him. Bobby's expression shaded into a kind of mute horror as she began to cry.


"Diedre. . ."


Bobby walked over to where the woman knelt and stopped behind her. He seemed like he wanted to comfort her, but couldn't decide what to do. Scott stayed a little ways back so as not to interfere as Bobby finally knelt down and took the sobbing woman in his arms. She resisted only for a moment, and then clung to him with desperate strength.


The first police car turned the corner at the end of the block, lights flashing and siren wailing.


"Bobby, we have to go," he told the young man as gently as he could manage.


Bobby nodded in response and urged the woman to her feet. Her tears were diminishing now and she rubbed her face to try to clear them.


Scott caught Bobby's eye. "Do we need to take him with us?" he asked in an undertone, indicating the dead man with a jerk of his head. He didn't want to just leave him to the authorities if it was going to be a source of anguish for the young woman.


The woman looked up at him with her reddened eyes, and Scott was surprised by the determined expression he saw there. "No." She pressed her lips together and glanced back at the body. "Leave him."


"Are you sure?" Bobby asked, her expression intense.


She nodded, and quietly reached over and pulled a ring from her left hand. The gold band winked dully in the poor light as she held it in her hand, her expression thoughtful. Then she turned and tossed it toward the dead man lying in the street.


"I don't want to take anything of Michael's with me," she told Bobby in a voice that was hardly above a whisper.


Scott stared at the two of them, wondering what he should be seeing. He was dreadfully certain that he wouldn't like the answer, no matter what it was, but he also knew that it would have to wait until they got back to the mansion.





Bobby clung to the edge of the medi-unit as the Blackbird banked sharply, turning them back toward Westchester. He felt sick inside. Remy was dying. He could see it in Hank's face-that closely guarded expression that told Bobby that he was steeling himself against the loss.


Jean stood at Remy's head, her fingers light on his temples and her brow furrowed in concentration. After a moment, she opened her eyes and Bobby could see the glimmer of frustrated tears.


"There's nothing I can do. He won't let me in."


"What do you mean?" Bobby found it almost a relief to look at Jean instead of the devastated form on the table in front of him. Remy's wounds were as bad as anything he'd ever seen with the X- Men, and he would have found it difficult even if he weren't one of the closest friends Bobby had.


Jean shrugged helplessly. "His shields are solid. I can't enter his mind-not even to help."


Hank looked up from the readings on the medi-unit. "Distasteful though it might be, in the interest of saving a life, you might consider forcing your way in."


She shook her head. "That wouldn't work. His shields are will- based. If I broke them, I'd be destroying the one thing that's keeping him alive." She looked back down at Remy's face. "All I can do is keep calling to him in the hopes that he'll answer."


In a flash of certainty, Bobby realized that that wasn't going to happen. Whatever was going on inside Remy's mind, he knew that he wasn't going to let a first class telepath inside his head under any circumstance. He had too many secrets to keep. Too many questions whose answers would be dangerous for the X-Men to know. Too many mutants whose existence would be compromised. And even if Bobby knew in his heart that Jean would never betray that confidence, he also knew that Remy didn't trust her that much. But maybe, just maybe, he might have come to trust Bobby that much.


"Jean, can you take me with you? Into Remy's mind?"


She cocked her head, regarding him through narrowed eyes. "Do you think he'd listen to you?"


Bobby's breath caught in his throat. "Maybe."


She stared at him for a bare moment more before nodding. "All right. Brace yourself."


The world lurched sideways as Jean pulled him onto the astral plane. Bobby found himself standing in a gray place, facing an impossibly tall black wall. Jean stood beside him, hands on hips as she stared at the empty black face.


"Is this. . .?"


She nodded. "His shields. Gambit is downright paranoid about telepaths. His mind is like this anytime I'm around him." Bobby though he heard a faint note of hurt in her voice.


Bobby reached out to touch the black surface. It was smooth and chill beneath his fingertips. "It's not paranoia," he reassured her, his thoughts falling back through the past months. "It's prudence."


Jean gave him an odd look, which Bobby ignored. His attention was on the black wall that separated Remy from the person who could help keep him alive. Experimentally, he pounded on it with his fist, eliciting a dull, booming sound.


"Remy! Remy, I know you're in there!" He had an absurd image of himself standing outside Gambit's door in the mansion, pounding away. "Remy, it's Bobby! Please, let me in!"


There was no response that he could see. He glanced at Jean, who shook her head. Her lips were pressed together in a painfully thin line. "Hank says the medi-unit is maxed out, just like it did with Wolverine. . ."


Bobby stared at her. The mission to Avalon, where Magneto had nearly killed Wolverine, was the only time the Shi'ar medi-unit had been unable to cope with an X-Man's injuries. His stomach knotted painfully. Until now.


He went back to pounding on the wall, yelling at Remy to let them in, but it did no good. After a while, he felt Jean's hand close on his shoulder.


"I'm so sorry, Bobby," she said gently. "I know you two were close."


Bobby felt the burn of tears in his eyes as he looked up at the black wall. "He's not dead!" he snarled at Jean.


She shook her head sadly. "Not yet, but we're still four minutes away from touchdown, plus the time to transfer him to the infirmary. He's already lost too much blood for his heart to even continue beating-there's nothing left for it to push around." Her hand fell away from his shoulder. "Hank doesn't think he'll make it that far."


Bobby fought the sobs that would rob him of speech. "If I can get you inside, can you hold onto him? Keep him alive long enough to get to the infirmary?"


Her expression said that she thought it hopeless, but she nodded. "Maybe."


Bobby turned away from her, back toward the featureless black wall. There was one thing he could try, one thing that no X-Man would know to do, that might make Remy listen. He drew himself up to his full height and placed both palms against the wall.


"Master Thief LeBeau," he said quietly, in the formal cadence of the Guild. "As is my right as blood member of the Guild, I call you to account for the murder of Guildmaster Tyre. Present yourself before the Guild, or it will be known that you are without honor."


Bobby had learned the rituals, and he knew that any guildmember could call another to account for any crime that was witnessed, no matter the ranks involved. And since they were on the astral plane, Bobby was the sole Guild representative around, which meant that Remy had to come to him or forfeit his reputation and rank within the Guild.


Jean was staring at him, wide eyed, as the wall began to crumble. It collapsed with a roar, but left no rubble behind. On the far side stood Remy, his red eyes glowing with suppressed rage.


"How *dare* you. . ."


Bobby met those glowing eyes without fear. He understood now that doing what was necessary wasn't always doing what was honorable.


"Jean," he said quietly and watched as she moved past him, toward Remy. Once inside the heavy shields, Bobby knew, even Remy had no defense against a telepath of Jean's caliber. But if anyone could keep him alive, it was her. And if Remy's friendship, his trust and respect, were the price Bobby paid for preserving his life, he would pay it, though not without regret.





Bobby's arms tightened instinctively around Diedre as Scott and Jean walked into the War Room. It had always struck Bobby as a strange place to wait in such circumstances, but it was the closest room to the infirmary with chairs, and invariably it was where the X-Men gathered to await news of an injured comrade.


"So what's the word?" Logan asked, his slouched posture so casual that Bobby wanted to jump up and down for him.


"He's stabilized." Scott answered, his face inscrutable behind the visor. "Hank says that's the best we can hope for at the moment. He'll be able to tell us more in the morning."


Ororo breathed a soft sigh and sank onto the corner of the table while Logan reached over to pat her knee in encouragement.


The knot of terror in Bobby's stomach loosened a notch at the words and he pulled Diedre to him in a hug. Scott's gaze fastened on them, his intensity causing the hairs on the back of Bobby's neck to bristle in warning.


"So I believe you have some explaining to do." Bobby could see the clenched muscles in his jaw, and his stomach tightened again in apprehension. "Two people were killed in that blast, and I want to know what happened. Now."


Bobby closed his eyes, overwhelmed, as understanding hit him. Two innocent people were dead, and it was his fault. Remy would never have let Michael maneuver him into that kind of duel in a public place if it hadn't been for Bobby. Perhaps it would have come to blood eventually without Bobby's involvement, but he knew that it was his own love for Diedre that had lit the fuse between deadly enemies and brought these events about. Once it had started, he realized, it could not have ended any other way. Politically, neither could have afforded to leave the other alive, but Bobby knew that Remy would never have started this himself. He was too smart and too careful to take such a risk.


Slowly, he opened his eyes. "If you're going to blame anyone, it's me you should be blaming. Remy only got involved because *I* got . . . involved." He squeezed Diedre's shoulder apologetically. "He was trying to protect us."


"That doesn't excuse murder."


Bobby stiffened angrily. "It was self-defense and you know it."


"Putting nine slugs in somebody is not an act of self-defense." Scott crossed his arms. "Jean couldn't read very much from his during the fight, but she could tell that he was determined to kill that man, without thought for the consequences."


Bobby shot Jean an accusing look, but she only shrugged. He looked back at Scott. *. . . survive, no matter what, so long as the first two are kept safe,* he thought. Killing Michael was about survival, no matter how it appeared to an outsider. But there was no way for him to explain that to Scott. Not without sacrificing everything Remy had been working for the last three years.


"I'm sorry, Scott," he said with as much fortitude as he could muster, "but I can't give you any better explanation than that." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Logan pause, an expression of pure surprise on his face that disappeared almost instantly.


Scott was staring at him. "Excuse me?"


Bobby took a shaky breath. "You heard me. I told you what happened. If you don't want to believe me, that's your business, but I've said as much as the X-Men need to know. The rest is personal."


"Personal?! Three people are dead, Bobby!" Scott's face was red.


Bobby desperately wanted to run away from the older man's anger, but he knew he couldn't. "That's something that I'm going to have to live with." He could count the price of his love for Diedre in the lives that it had cost. He wasn't certain yet how he felt about that. Taking Diedre's hand, he turned to leave.


"Where are you going? We aren't finished with this yet, mister," Scott snapped behind him.


The last of Bobby's patience evaporated at the militant tone and he whirled to face the man he had once idolized. He felt too much remorse and guilt to be truly angry, but he had no intention of betraying Gambit to people who would never understand. "Yes, we are," he said flatly.


Scott was stunned into silence as Bobby turned away. The other X-Men had watched the exchange in silence, but he fancied he saw a note of approval in Logan's eyes as he passed. But even if that wasn't true, it didn't matter. When he became a thief, Bobby had accepted the fact that he would forever be walking in the shadows and that the choices he made would sometimes carry a heavy price in the coin of the soul. It was a price he had agreed to pay, but that had not prepared him for how much it would hurt.





Part Twenty Four
[Lori McDonald]


Bobby was exhausted by the time they reached the women's wing. All of the day's events and the huge drain on his mutant power seemed to settle on him all at once, dragging him down. He opened the door of the first unoccupied room and ushered Diedre inside.


Diedre looked around, a slightly puzzled expression on her face. "Is this... my room?"


Bobby nodded and settled gratefully on the edge of the bed. He felt like his mind was shutting down. He knew it was reaction to Scott, and to the deaths of those people, but he simply didn't have the energy to think about anything.


After a moment, Diedre sat down next to him and laced her fingers together in her lap. "I guess I thought... you might want me to stay with you."


Bobby turned abruptly red as the meaning of her words sank in. "I- no-I--well, yes, but-" He floundered briefly, feeling the blood rise in his cheeks. "I thought you might need some... time."


Her blue eyes flicked to his before she lowered them. A slow smile spread across her lips. "I suppose I do." The next glance she gave him was warm and vaguely flirtatious. "I keep forgetting what a gentleman you are."


Bobby reached over and gathered her hands in his. "We can take all the time we need. Nothing can keep us apart now," he told her softly.


Diedre raised her eyes to his and tightened her fingers around his. "Nothing," she agreed.





Quietly, Bobby slipped down the stairs and across the living room, headed for the elevators to the lower levels.


"Goin' somewhere, bub?"


Startled, he looked up to see Wolverine standing in the corner, leaning against the wall. He looked at the younger man intently, with the same gaze that before had made him feel that he knew everything he was hiding. To his own surprise, Bobby found that Logan didn't frighten or enrage him anymore. He wasn't incautious around him, but the younger man could read his intentions enough to know that he didn't intend anything, and if he did, Bobby knew he could defend himself. There was respect there instead, for the inner strength of the Canadian that he'd never appreciated before.


"Does it matter?" he asked wearily. He didn't want a confrontation.


"Does if you're planning on visitin' the Cajun."


Bobby's eyes narrowed. "Do you honestly think I'd do anything to disturb his healing?"


"Didn't say you were, but Beast said he was off limits ta visitors."


The young thief shook his head. "I won't disturb him, but I have an obligation to tell him I'm sorry for what happened."


For a long moment, the other X-Man was silent, then he moved towards him. "You've changed, boy," he said softly, respect in his voice. It was a tone Bobby had never heard him use before in reference to him. "Cajun did something to you. What really happened out there?"


"It's nothing you have to worry about, Logan," he assured him. "It's like that Japanese word you keep telling us about. Giri? I've got a duty to him." Bobby turned and made his way across the living room, half expecting the grip on his arm to stop him that never came, but would have only a few days before. "And Logan?" He looked back at him, tired. "After everything, I think I'd like it if occasionally you didn't call me boy."


He wasn't sure, but the glint in the older man's eye almost seemed to agree.





Remy slept, his chest wrapped in bandages and with a dozen sensors sprouting out of his body like living things, attaching him to the Sh'iar equipment that surrounded him. They were the finest medical machines in the galaxy and there was no sign of Hank, a sure sign that Remy wasn't in immediate danger.


Careful not to disturb him, Bobby went into the darkened room and over to the bed, his face still feeling pink and raw from the thorough scrubbing he'd given himself outside, his clothes replaced by sterilized scrubs. Looking at his master, he winced at the extent of the injuries, from the bandaged chest and the elevated leg, but Gambit was still breathing, and Hank had cautious hopes he would recover.


Bobby sat in a chair beside the bed. "Thank you, master," he whispered. "Remy. You saved us both. I can't ever repay you for that sacrifice."


Remy's breath caught, then his eyes opened, turning slowly to look at him. "…why did you betray me?" he whispered. There was such a hurt look in his eyes, violated and confused.


"I had to," he whispered. "Only Jean could save you."


"…she could have… seen everything…"


He nodded sadly. "I know. You trusted my word. Please trust hers. She'll keep silent."


"All dose people." He closed his eyes, then reopens them, looking sad. "If Scott find out…" He snorted. "He do so much damage tryin' t' do good."


Bobby reached out to take his hand, holding it warmly. "She won't tell. I swear to you. I've known her since I was a teenager, she was trained by the Professor. She won't tell anymore than he would."


The Cajun sighed. "Gonna have t' be happy wit' dat, I guess."


Bobby swallowed. "Do you forgive me?"


He looked at him for a long time, then around the room at the beeping machines and deep shadows, gaze resting for a while on the deepest shadows on the far side of the room. "Best a intentions. Gotta f'give y' Bobby. Ev'one make mistakes, an' I didn' wan' t' die anyway. T'ank you f' dat, anyway."


Bobby nodded, feeling the tension just release out of him in a wave. The idea that Gambit would hate him now had been like a physical force, choking him. "Thanks."


"Y' welcome." Remy closed his eyes, snorting a laugh that obviously hurt as he winced. "…didi…?"


Bobby smiled. "Alive and well, thanks to you."


"…if I'd known… you were boffin'… the boss' wife… wouldna been… so quick… t' help."


He knew that. "I know. But I had to. And I wasn't ‘boffing' her."


"…never…?"


He shook his head. "Never touched her."


Remy started to laugh, silently. "…see? …tol' you it could work…"


Surprised, Bobby looked up to see the woman who'd been standing in shadows until then, unnoticed even by him. "Maybe, shugah," she said. "Maybe."





#Bobby, may I see you in my office, please?#


Bobby stiffened at the voice in his head. Here it was.


"What's wrong?" Diedre asked sleepily, cuddled up with him on the couch.


He kissed her shoulder. "Nothing. I just have to go for a bit. I'll be back." Slipping out from under her embrace, he handed her the remote for the television and went to the professor's office.


Xavier waited patiently for him, his hands folded on his desk. Trying to look nonchalant, and working every mind-blocking trick Remy had taught him, Bobby went over and sat down before him. "You wanted to see me?"


Xavier nodded. "How is Diedre feeling? She is welcome to stay here for as long as she likes."


Bobby nodded cautiously, regretting in a way the necessity of not fully trusting a man who'd been a mentor. "Thank you. I appreciate that, sir. And she's doing as well as can be expected. It'll take time."


The telepath nodded, gesturing to the coffee pot on the side table against the wall. "Feel free to pour yourself a cup." Bobby stood to get them both one. "Have you read the paper this morning?"


Filled with stories about the mutant battle in the middle of New York and rumours of mutant conspiracies. "I have."


"Yes. Remy's altercation has stirred up a lot of trouble. I'm going to be addressing the city on the subject the day after tomorrow. They've called a meeting to decide what to do in response."


Bobby brought his coffee to him. "Do you know what they plan to do?" he asked politely as he retook his seat.


"Unfortunately, no. The council house has psychic dampers in it. I've been given almost no time to prepare a defense while I suspect there are people on the council who have been readying themselves for an incident such as this for a long time." He sipped his own coffee, his face impassive and calm as ever.


Bobby winced, even as he tried to guess Xavier's mood and failed miserably. He knew enough about politics now to know that the professor would have to be very lucky not to be torn apart by the more vicious of them. "There are a lot of mutants in New York who could be hurt by any laws they pass." My fault, he thought miserably and clamped down on the thought.


"Yes," Xavier agreed, though whether it was to his words or his thoughts, Bobby wasn't sure. His face was just so unreadable. In a way, Xavier was a master at the art of hiding thoughts and emotions that Remy has spent so much time teaching to Bobby. "I'm sure they've prepared extensive notes on what they plan to do. They must be interesting reading."


Bobby panicked, wondering if the professor was asking him what he thought. Desperately, he fought the instinctive fear down, trying desperately to think and to sound calm, as well as not to project his urge to bolt from the room and not stop running until he was back in Diedre's arms. "Anyone who read them would be able to catch up," he managed, guessing. "Maybe stop a lot of stupidity."


"Perhaps."


Bobby stared into his coffee, heart pounding, then placed it on the desk. "It's been an interesting conversation, professor. Thanks for the coffee."


"You're welcome." The man's face still hadn't changed.


He stood, trying not to tremble. "I have to go now, though. I forgot about something I need to take care of."


"Very well. Have a good evening, Bobby."


Bobby returned to his room, sweating. Once there, he changed and packed his gear, Diedre watching him curiously from the couch. "What's going on?"


He kissed her gently, reveling in it and how just her presence calmed his doubts. "Just going out for a bit. I'll be back before morning."


Used to Michael's excursions, she smiled and kissed him back. "Okay."


Bobby went out the door. A few of the X-Men were still up and they nodded to him as he went past and out the front door. For a moment, he leaned on it, steadying himself. Master, he thought, directing them towards the medical unit below the ground. Thanks, and wish me luck.


Then, flipping up his collar, he stepped away from the mansion and vanished into the night.






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THE END





[That's all for this fic, folks! But there is a sequel...]